advice on HR monitors

[amybajamy]

Does anyone know of a good HR monitor for $100 or less that figures out the # of calories burned too? How accurate do you think the ones without the chest strap are? Do you have to use electrode jelly with the chest strap?

Thanks,
Amy

 

[Juliebeth]

The Polar A5 is under $100.00, and is very reliable, IMO. You lightly wet the chest strap with water. It does give you a calorie reading, but it doesn't begin counting calories until your HR gets to 100, and it doesn't tell you what % of "fat" calories you burn. I always felt it was pretty accurate, but I don't have anything to compare it to.
I am now using a Polar F11, and I really like it, but I think it is $140.00-$160.00 retail. I don't know about any other brands.
You can compare the Polars here:

http://www.polarusa.com/

Julie

 

[amybajamy]

Thank you very much for the info. I might buy that one.

Amy

 

[CDPotier]

I just bought the Polar F4 monitor which is sized for a woman's wrist. It works great, and, although I have a small living room where I do my workouts, it read my heart rate accurately. It also told me how many calories I burned, and it has a plastic chest strap that I just had to moisten.

I highly recommend it, and I paid about 79.00 for it.

 

[bethj]

I upgraded from the cheapest Polar to the Polar F4 becuase I wanted the calorie feature and this seemed to be the least expensive. I like the slim design and its fairly simple to program and use. I also paid 79 with free shipping. I don't know how accurate the calories burned are, but at least I can use it to compare workouts- calories burned per hour- to get a good idea of my most effective workouts.
Beth

 

[CDPotier]

I did RS yesterday, and the F4 told me that I burned 370 calories, which seems to be in the ballpark. I do, however, have to program it using the heart rate reserve method, as I have a resting pulse of 60 which needs to be factored in.