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Heart-rate monitors help PT flunkers

ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska — A program to equip out-of-shape airmen with heart-rate monitors is yielding substantial improvements in fitness, base officials here say.

Since the initiative was launched a year ago, participating airmen have on average cut their run times by one minute and 57 seconds, slimmed their waistlines by 3.55 inches and lost 19.18 pounds, said Leyla Kelter, director of Elmendorf’s health and wellness center.

The center is one of only a handful across the service that gives heart-rate monitors to airmen who fail their physical-training tests. The Air Force couldn’t give an exact number of bases distributing the monitors but singled out Elmendorf and Aviano Air Base, Italy, as two that are taking extraordinary measures to help airmen boost their PT scores.

Every base has heart-rate monitors — the number depends on the base’s size — to administer a bike test for airmen who have a medical waiver for the 1.5-mile-run component of the PT test, but bases aren’t required to lend the monitors to flunkers. The Air Force Instruction, however, does require every airman who fails the PT test to participate in the service’s fitness improvement program and monitor his heart rate — usually by taking his pulse — as part of that program.

Elmendorf’s fitness experts have 200 heart-rate monitors, all the $270 RS400 model made by Polar USA, to distribute as part of the base’s year-old Downloadable Heart Rate Program. Right now, 169 of the monitors are on loan.

The Downloadable Heart Rate Program augments the AFI-mandated Fitness Improvement Program, targeting airmen who score fewer than 69 out of the possible 100 points on the PT test and need to reduce their abdominal circumference (by 4 inches for men and 2 inches for women), cut their run time by three minutes, increase their maximum oxygen capacity score by five or bring down a body mass index above 30.

Dramatic results

Forty-nine airmen received the monitors shortly after Kelter launched the program. They have shown significant improvement in their fitness levels and are pleased with the results, according to Kelter.

“People like the heart-rate monitors so much that they don’t want to come off the program so they don’t have to turn them in,” she said.

A monitor has two parts: a band worn around the chest and a digital watch. The band measures the heart rate — the number of beats per minute — and sends the information to the watch, which displays the rate to the wearer.

Each Friday, the airmen bring their monitors to the center so the fitness experts can download information on their progress. Elmendorf chose the Polar RS400 because of its download feature, Kelter said, though Polar and competitors Nike, Suunto, Timex and Garmin produce less expensive models, some priced as low as $35.

A person should exercise at 50 percent to 85 percent of his maximum heart rate to burn fat and build muscle, according to the American Heart Association.

“You will see a benefit any time your heart rate goes over 50 percent,” said Dr. Tracy Stevens, a cardiologist at the Muriel I. Kauffman Women’s Heart Center at Saint Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo. “Using a heart-rate monitor will help you exercise. They are not critical, but knowing when you go over 50 percent is important.”

The simplest way to calculate your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220, Stevens said. For example, the maximum heart rate for a 20-year-old is 200 beats per minute. His target heart rate zone is 100 to 170 beats per minute.

Fitness specialists at Elmendorf use a three-step method called the Karvonen formula to determine an airman’s target heart rate zone.

Regardless of how the target heart rate zone is calculated, Stevens and the Elmendorf experts agree an airman must exercise in that zone to see results.

“If an airman doesn’t reach their target heart rate, they need to work out harder,” said Ryan LaRock, an Elmendorf fitness test cell specialist. “We are there to meet with them to help provide different exercises to ensure they reach that heart rate.”

Matt Sargent, another Elmendorf fitness specialist, recommends spinning classes, water aerobics, running and circuit training to the airmen he advises. Adding repetitions to a workout also helps, he said.

Lt. Col. Andy Hird is a firm believer in heart-rate monitors because he has seen how they have helped the airmen he oversees as commander of Elmendorf’s 517th Airlift Squadron. He is investing about $18,000 in squadron funds to buy 180 monitors for his airmen.

“The ones we used so far … greatly benefit the airmen using them,” Hird wrote in an e-mail to Air Force Times. “We intend for anyone close to the [minimum] fitness standard to wear a monitor when we get [them].”

Kelter thinks the heart-rate monitors help hold airmen accountable. The monitors tell her fitness specialists how hard and how often airmen are working out, she said.

“I wish we could give one to every airman,” she said, “but obviously they are expensive.”

The Aviano experience

Aviano’s fitness center has about 150 Polar F11 and Polar F6 heart-rate monitors, said Maj. Lora Pietszak, health promotion manager for the base. The F11 costs about $180 retail; the F6 runs about $120 off the shelf.

About 100 are checked out, all to airmen who flunked the PT test and are enrolled in the base’s fitness improvement program. Unlike Elmendorf, Aviano did not stand up its own program for PT flunkers.

The F11 and F6 models are less advanced than the RS400 and don’t have the download feature. The airmen at Aviano receive worksheets and write down their heart rates after each workout.

“The heart-rate monitors give the airmen immediate feedback because they understand the importance of their heart rate while exercising. … They are very specific giving airmen their heart rate and how many calories they are burning,” Pietszak said. “They help motivate the airmen to work out harder and longer.”

Pietszak acknowledges an airman could take his own heart rate but she favors the heart-rate monitor because it details how long the airman has worked out in his training zone.

The heart-rate monitors are also popular with squadron commanders. Some, like Hird, have bought monitors to distribute to their airmen. Pietszak, however, did not know how many squadron commanders are buying the monitors and how many monitors are owned by the squadrons.

“Commanders see the benefit they provide,” she said, “and want to make them more available to their airmen.”