Heart-rate monitor keeps tabs on Wolves players

Drive through an open road toll with a negative balance on your I-PASS or with no I-PASS at all and you can be sure someone somewhere is going to find out and eventually you'll pay for it.

Because, somewhere someone's always watching.

If you're a Chicago Wolves player and you try to shirk a little in practice or during off-ice workouts, you also can be assured someone is watching.

And his name is Rob Rosmis.

The team's strength and conditioning coach, who is a former Des Plaines policeman, doesn't just use his eyes to gauge player workouts, he has taken it one step further. Rosmis' version of the I-PASS is a heart-rate monitoring system that players strap around their chests before games, practices and off-ice workouts.

And at the other end of things is Rosmis and his laptop, keeping track of all of their heart rates in real time.

Rosmis admits it wasn't a big hit for players when he first introduced the Polar Team2 Pro Heart Rate Monitor System last season, the only such system currently in use in the American Hockey League.

“Some players, whenever you introduce something like that, they feel like the management is going to be looking over them, the coaching staff is going to be looking over them to see whether they're working hard or not,” he said.

And sure, that is one of the by-products of the technology.

“The heart-rate system is a massive learning tool for us, solely for the fact that the guys have it on and they know they are being monitored,” said Wolves general manager Wendell Young. “That entices the guys to work harder in practices. You can move your arms and act like you are working, but the true factor is the heart rate, and that is what we can watch.”

But it didn't take long for players to push those thoughts into the background. Spurred on by team veterans, Wolves players soon welcomed the new gadget — which is used in a similar form by several NHL teams — because they know in the end it will help improve their performance on the ice.

“Being able to educate them as to why it would be able to benefit them, they started to be more open to it — especially from a veterans' standpoint,” said Rosmis, who also does some strength and conditioning coaching for youth teams in Rolling Meadows. “That helped out a lot. Because if the vets are onboard, usually it's not an issue with the younger guys.”

As he peers at the array of numbers on his laptop, the main thing Rosmis is monitoring is recovery rate.

“If we can get players to turn on their hearts quickly and then get them to recover quickly, that's what we're looking for,” he said. “If I'm looking at heart-rate charts on the screen, what I'm looking for is: as soon as they're done with their activity, does their heart rate start to fall?

“Typically in the beginning of the season it's a good tool for us to see if the guys need a little extra conditioning. We look at it from a time standpoint. We generally want them to be at a 2 to 1 ratio, which means if they have a 45-second skating drill, we want them to at least drop 40 to 50 beats per minute” (during the recovery time).

And if those numbers aren't adding up, Rosmis goes to work with the player.

“I generally like to do the conditioning on the ice because it pertains more to the sport,” he said. “Either way, it will be in the form of interval training.

“I can take the heart-rate curves of the players on-ice and pretty much duplicate them off the ice or in the gym. Interval training is really big, not just for athletes but for general weight loss.”

Just what is interval training and how might that, along with the heart-rate monitor, help all of us average Joe's?

“You take an activity and you go all-out for a certain amount of time, then you recover,” he said. “So you're getting your heart rate up and then allowing it to recover. Instead of doing steady work where someone is either walking or jogging or riding a bike at the same pace for a period of time, what you can do is do about 15 to 30 to 45 seconds worth of work and then you allow your heart rate to come down.

“Research has shown that it gives better results and you don't have to work out as long. You're using your heart-rate monitor to see how your body is responding. If it takes you a long time to recover, obviously you want to improve that, and you can see the progress.”

And the beat goes on.