Suunto Heart Rate Training Evening

Our resident Master Instructor Sandro was joined by Steve Newell, who is the Business Development Manager & Fitness & Wellness (EMEA) for Suunto and they both delivered a very informative technical Heart Rate Training session at the Telegraph in Putney on the 4th February.

Not too many people know this but the Team Heart Rate system you see in use at Pedal Studio is still in early days of development. There are a number of competitors to this market and Suunto are powering their way ahead as market leaders. With the close support of Steve and his team there are some exciting developments ahead for the Team System and I was very grateful Steve could make the evening. He is a wealth of knowledge and offered some great insight into the technical questions raised on the night.

Sandro answered my call and did not just address the issue of Heart Rate training but he took things to the next level discussing Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) and the Suunto ‘Training Effect’. The Suunto Training Effect is represented as a number 1 through to 5 and appears on your feedback you get after each training session. Remarkably, Suunto have not just been happy with delivering Heart Rate training but are pioneering this science further and unknown to you, the rider, the system actually records the timing between the beats of your heart beat which is a critical component to take the science of EPOC further.


The technical evening covered topics such as: Why Heart Rate training, VO2 , EPOC , Training Affect , Coaching and Training Programmes (and the important there off). The session opened to the floor and Sandro provided key advice and answers to questions on technical issues around training. It is very clear in Sandro we have an exceptionally experience instructor and I would encourage you all to tap into this to enhance your training.

Steve offered a great example of how a standard route of 6km took him 30 minutes to run and produced a Suunto training affect of 3.1 however after a heavy gym session and fatigued muscles, all things being equal, he ran the same route later that week in the same time and produced a Training effect of 3.6 – proving that it is not just about Heart Rate but the ever important Suunto Training Effect.


I am going to ask Sandro and Suunto to run more techy training evenings as not only are they a good social evening out of like minded folk but there is so much to learn in this science of training and I want to firmly place Pedal Studio at the tip of all this, giving you the average person who is training access to this knowledge. It will deliver results and keep things interesting for you.

Missed the talk? Want to know more? Please mail me and I will ask Sandro to answer your questions. Whilst many of you see our Spinning instructors as just that, you should know these are experts in their field. Sandro is not only a Master Spinning Instructor but uses the Joe Friel (Training Bibles) coaching approach to coach top athletes in all sports. He is an ambassador for Suunto and their confidence and choice of him is evidence of his vast experience in the training and health industry.

Finally – I do have Suunto Heart Rate watches for sale that link into our Team System at the Studio. Drop me a line if you are interested.