Benefits -
- The heart rate in a racehorse is like a "biotachometer"-- it reveals how hard a horse is working at any moment in training.
- The heart rate in a racehorse is quantitatively reflective of the cardiac output, or the amount of blood that is being circulated to the muscles and other tissues.
- Monitoring the peak heart rate and the rate at which the heart rate recovers from a workout and elements within a workout, helps reveal the condition of the horse. Polar software allows easy analysis and comparisons.
- Monitoring, recording and analyzing heart rate information will allow trainers to design training schedules to better condition the aerobic and anaerobic systems in their athletes.
- Recording heart rate data over time will give an objective picture of a training program. With Polar, you can e-mail exercises.
- Abnormally elevated heart rate can be indicative of pain and/or excitement in a horse. But to know what is abnormal for a horse, one must first know the resting heart rate for that horse. Of course knowing the horses maximum heart rate open a whole new spectrum of conditioning possibilities.
- Monitoring the heart rate takes more of the guess work out of training.
Gary Potter PhD, Professor Emeritus Teaxs A&M.
Dr Potter is available for consultation on heart monotoring and nutrition. Please Click Here to send your contact information to Gary.
Please recognize that Heart Rate focused conditioning is a tool to be used as part of your comprehensive training program. In today's world, heart monitoring is not the primary determinant of how hard and frequently to work a horse as there are many variables to determine performance on any given day. Training a horse purely on heart rate alone may be imprudent. Wisdom dictates to integrate heart monitoring in a well balanced program.
Knowing a horses minimum and maximium heart rates are essential to effective and safe application of the Heart Monitoring tool.
