Guaging your workout

One of the difficulties in training indoors on a spin bike is gauging your effort. When cycling outside you measure yourself with speed and time goals over a set course of terrain. The resistance on the spin bike is controlled by an uncalibrated knob, that you turn clockwise to increase resistance and counter clockwise to decrease. I have used a heart monitor pretty much from my start in spinning. It allows you to monitor your heart rate and increase or decrease resistance to push yourself harder or ease off. For the past few months I have been using a Garmin FR60 Heart Monitor that constantly records my heart rate allows me to upload the data and view a graph of my heart rate during my workouts. Quantifying your effort allows you to set goals and hold yourself accountable for them. My goal for this week was to reach the 1000 calories burned level in a one hour spin class. I was able to reach that level on Friday for a successful week of training.