We're still getting a load of queries about the old ticker and whether you are training in the right band or not. In the Indoor Rower Training Guide, under the heading Target Heart Rate, it explains how to calculate your training heart rate just by using your heart rate maximum. This method is very simple and any error will be on the safe side because it does not consider your resting heart rate. But for those of you who feel that your training is too easy when using this method, here is another way to calculate what your heart rate should be. First a little explanation as to the difference. When you tuck up in bed at night for a well earned kip does your heart stop beating? No, course not. You still have to get blood up to the brain which keeps all the vital bodily functions running, and this consumes energy. Depending on who you are, you could be consuming between 1500-2500 calories just by lying in bed. This is known as your basal metabolic rate. As you get up, move around, do exercise etc., your metabolism speeds up and this is the metabolic equivalent to the work load. This is measured in METS, where one MET is the consumption of 3.5 millilitres of oxygen per kilogramme of body weight in a minute.This is very difficult to measure in your front room but there is a corresponding increase in the heart rate associated with the increase in demand for oxygen which is easy to measure. Because the bodies vital systems are running all the time, we allow for it when we calculate our training bands. With this system you have to establish your heart rate range (HRR) and for this you need to know two things:1. Your Heart Rate Maximum on the machine (HRM). 2. Your Resting Heart Rate (RHR).From these you determine your HRR by subtracting the resting heart rate from the heart rate maximum.For our example, we'll use the simple formula 220 - age as giving the maximum heart rate, although check out the Tel's Tale called Heart Rate Training on our web-site for a more accurate way of calculating your HRM. For a 40 year old person, therefore, this would give us a HRM of 180 bpm (beats per minute). We will assume that the resting heart rate is 60 bpm (to calculate your RHR, take it first thing in the morning before you've even got up).We now know the range of our heart from rest to flat out on the machine, i.e. the difference between the HRM and the RHR is 180-60 = 120 bpm. Somewhere within these 120 beats all the training bands will fall. So if you want to train at 75% then, using the example above, 120 x 75% = 90bpm; add this to our resting heart rate which is 60 and we get 150bmp. If you work out your training band from the percentage of your maximum heart rate alone it will always come out lower. If in the case above we take 75% of 180bpm, it would only be 135bpm, and that is why when you are training in the band it may feel too easy. When you move up to 85%, instead of working the heart rate up to 162, you keep it down to 153.Now this may seem totally mystifying to anyone mathematically challenged but just think about it for a moment. Our heart rate doesn't go from 0 to maximum, it goes from a basal level to maximum; because we cannot consciously effect the basal level we take it out of the equation. If you want to prove you can't consciously alter your basal level, try committing suicide by holding your breath....See, can't be done.