Roger Phipps had a question about Heart Rates: With reference to the use of a Heart Rate Monitor when rowing, any tips about how quickly your rate should decline from the maximum rate identified by your 45 second burst mentioned in the last Newsletter. I read somewhere that how quickly (or slowly) the rate falls off after tough exercise is a good measure as to the state of one's ticker. Terry O'Neill: The quicker your heart rate returns to normal after a burst of exercise is not so much an indication of your heart's condition but your overall fitness.The heart rate increases as a response to the demand for more oxygen from the muscles involved in exercise. The keyword here is response. You start the exercise and then the heart kicks in, ups the rate and pumps the blood round. There is therefore a delay from the commencement of exercise to the heart rate increasing, and the heart rate may continue to increase even when you have stopped hard work. Then, as a response to the reduced demand for oxygen the heart rate will start to fall.As a means to measure your fitness, try this:One minute post-exercise take your heart rate, this will allow for any increase in heart rate after you stop exercise. Then take it each minute for two more minutes. Then at 5 minutes and finally ten minutes record the rate and plot the heart rate against time. You can do this once a month and you can see the rate fall against time.