So what is one's target? How to find one's target? What is the best target? Just curious. :dunno:
there are many things it can do, depending on how much money you spend, but its good to not pay too much attention to the device, unless you're training for some pro competition and you need precise training.
in the beginning, this is not true. every few seconds you look at the HRM and check your heart rate, your distance etc, but after using it for more than a year already, when I go out for a run I use my polar mainly to keep a record of the run so I can analyse it on the PC later if I want to. During the run, I use it to keep track of the distance since I run different routes all the time to keep it fresh & interesting. When you start out running after years of laziness, that's where I think the HRM gets interesting.
When I started off running, my heart rate hits 90+% of maximum very quickly after running to a jog pace. That's the mark of a very unfit runner. If its your first time, you wont know how much to push before you should let go. What I mean here is that you could be putting your health in trouble by training at too intensive amount all the time. There are a lot of theories behind this, wont go into it here. But once you are used to wearing a HRM, (approx a few months?) depending on how tired you are you will know what heart rate you're having at that moment. If you're gasping for air, chances are you're >90% of the maximum heart rate. Then you know to slow down so that you dont end up killing yourself.
Why is this important? Because if you really want to improve, its no good to run too strenuous a run, and of course you will not improve if your heart is not doing any work. So you have a range of heart rates that you set as your target (believe me, once you have the heart rate monitor you'll do a lot of reading up) during your run and you use the HRM to make sure that you stay there. For example, for my short run where I'm trying to build up my lung capacity, I usually push >90%. But for long endurance run, my heart rate is never more than 85%, comfortable enough to talk during the run, but not too easy a run. The recording function is just a bonus. always nice to have a 2 year record of every run you have made.
So what's the best target? First you need to know your maximum heart rate. Either you go to your doctor for this, or the Polar HRMs can estimate it. Where you want to train, it really depends on you, everyone is different. Its like asking which DSLR you should buy. You ask me I tell you to get a D2X... but do you REALLY need anything other than a point and shoot? Same for heart rate training. If I have a half marathon coming up and I can't do that distance now, I'd train more on low heart rate and try to cover the distance (build up my leg muscles to take the strain). If I can already run that far, but I need more speed, I'll do other type of training, mix of endurance and high heart rate tempo or intervals, etc etc... need to fire up your google engine and start reading up.