IHT SPIRIT Heart Rate Monitors
Wrist-based Heart Rate monitors
We are thrilled to announce that due to the generosity of our IHMS Ed Fund, we can now begin implementing a new physical education technology and curriculum system called the IHT Spirit System in most of our 6th grade classes during the second semester. This new technology will engage students in the latest heart rate monitor and assessment technology available today.
The Spirit System is an assessment system that uses wrist-based heart rate monitors that students will wear during PE. The heart rate monitors are designed specifically for physical education classes, to help students and teachers gain instant feedback on their effort during physical activity. These wrist-based monitors will be calibrated to each individual student throughout the day, providing us data that will allow us to monitor and adjust curriculum based on the unique needs of our student population. This will allow us to continually evaluate our program, our lessons, and most importantly how we can best support students as they progress throughout the year.
What is a heart rate monitor?
A heart rate monitor comes in many forms. For us, we will be using monitors that are worn on the wrist, similar to how one would wear a watch or fitness tracker. A heart rate monitor measures the average number of times your heart contracts in one minute.
Why is heart rate training important?
We know that Improved cardiovascular health results in the following (to name a few):
Improved Speed & endurance
Improved mental function
Improved ability to burn calories
Exercise provides a wide range of overall health benefits, however the those benefits vary depending on the intensity of the exercise. Heart rate zones help us identify and adjust activities that will help students meet specific goals for improved health and wellness.
What are heart rate zones?
The Spirit Heart rate monitors use a 3 color system (Blue, Yellow, and Red) to identify a zone, or range of beats per minute. The health benefits derived from each zone will differ, meaning students will need to train in different zones for different benefits.
How are heart rate zones determined?
The size of each zone is a 20% range of your maximum heart rate. For most people, zones range approximately 35-40 beats in size. The Spirit system determines each individual students' Maximum Heart rate using an algorithm that takes into account height and weight, age, gender, and fitness level.
Why are heart rate monitors an important part of daily physical education?
Simply put, it allows us to provide accurate and consistent feedback for each student that might not otherwise be possible. In a typical physical education class of 50-60 students, it is difficult for us to provide the amount of quality feedback to help every student be successful.
Self-assessment is an important part of leading a physically active lifestyle and heart rate monitors make it possible for us to not only provide the best instruction, and to better assess our content and delivery, but to help students learn how to derive the maximum amount of benefits from exercise in the short period of time we have with them each day.
When will students be using Heart Rate Monitors?
Classes that are using the zone monitors will use them approximately 1-2 times per week. Heart rate monitors will be worn during interval cardio activities, as well as introductory HIIT activities. Similar to our 7th and 8th grade HIIT programs, 6th graders will be introduced to interval training activities and will use heart monitors to help monitor and make adjustments to their exercise intensity based on their own individual performance and individual goals. By learning to identify how their body feels during mild, moderate, and vigorous intensity exercise, they become more proficient in their ability to gauge when they need to decrease their exercise intensity, and when they can push themselves a bit harder.
What about student Data and Privacy?
We take the safety and privacy of student data very seriously. The manner in which we are using this system does NOT require students to create an account or log into the system. We have taken extra steps to ensure student identities and performance data will remain anonymous, identifiable only by their physical education teacher.
While this system does have the capability to allow teachers to send daily performance reports to both parents and students via email, we have chosen not to use this function as an extra precaution in our efforts to protect student data and privacy.
Where can I go to learn more?
Please check out the video below or visit: https://ihtusa.com/our-story-and-purpose/#