heart rate monitors??

hrcfitness

hrcfitness

Cathlete
What kind do you all use? I have NO idea what to buy, but I think I want one. I don't need a ton of functions...I just want to monitor my heart rate during Cardio and I think it would be a great thing to have when STS Cardio arrives.
Thanks
Elena
 
I've been using a Polar F4 (quite basic) and it was perfectly fine for tracking heart rate and calories burned.

I just got a gift certificate to Dick's Sporting Goods so I treated myself to the FT40 which has a number of bells and whistles. But honestly, a basic model is all you really need. I've only used Polar so I can't recommend anything else but I've been pretty happy with them.

My only complaint is that sometimes it has difficulty picking up my heartrate when I'm doing high impact moves and it gets erratic. It's kind of annoying and almost made me give up my HRM entirely.
 
I have Polar F11, which I got 2 months ago. It worked fine till the last 2 weeks. I often get 00 or 200 reading, it drives me nuts as I can't concentrate on what I am doing. I read on polar MB that many people have this problem (usually it happens with the newer models that have the soft transmitter) I am about to give up using it. Just my .2c
 
well, to be honest, I haven't really used one cause I don't believe that the calories it tells me will BE ACTUALLY what I burn. cause it might say I burned 700 cal. but really I only burned 400 cal. I mean, I don't know if it's that big of a difference but I don't know what brand of HRM's are effecient enough for gauging calories, that's what I'd like.
 
I bought a strapless Mio Motiva Heart Rate Monitor a couple of years ago. I must say that it's very cute and has tons of functions. But it's absolutely useless during exercising. You have to stop completely and stay still in order to get an accurate reading of your BPM heart rate. This is a very difficult thing to do even if you are exercising at a very moderate rate. In order to estimate the number of calories you burn during your workout (more or less accurately), you have to stop and measure your heart rate every 3-5 minutes. So, whatever you do just don’t buy a heart rate monitor without a chest strap.

I think that a Polar heart rate monitor (e.g., F4, F6, or F7) would be a good choice:
http://www.polarusa.com/us-en/
Good luck with your search.
 
I have been using Polar HRM off and on for 10 years now and I have to say I love'em. I am a person who likes gizmos though. And yea, they may not tell me how many calories I burn exactly, but they will give me an idea about how one type of workout compares to another for calories burned..and I can compare the exact same workout over a period of time. I can see, that I am burning less calories so time to change it up or I've gotten out of shape and I'm burning more calories. I also like knowing what my HR ave and max are for a given workout. I have the F11 and have been having the trouble with it showing 00 and 236 for HR at times. Extremely annoying! I've had it for over a year and workout 6x/week usually so it has gotten a lot of use. What I have found helps is if I wet the strap before I put it on, and then wear it while I get ready and then usually by the time I have everything in place and am ready to work it is working properly.

Having the soft chest strap is really nice, but if the price you pay is having the 00 and the 236+ HR problem, I would say it is not worth it.


I bought the F11 model so I could download my workouts to the polar HRM site but I had such an old laptop I wasn't able to do that anyway.

Probably a lot more info that you wanted.
 
I have a Polar F6. I went up one level from the F4 so I could download my readings to the free Polar personal trainer software and track my workouts by HRR, etc. It will also allow me to modify or plan workouts based on my results. I've only had it for about a month or so, but have had no problems with it.
 
I have a Polar F4 also, and I highly recommend it. I like simplicity and this one is exactly what I need.
 
I just got a garmin forerunner 50 watch with the footpod so I can see how far I'm walking. It shows heart rate but it will only calculate calories if you have the footpod on and are moving. You can upload it to your computer and it will show your heart rate on a graph for the length of time you were training.

It's OK but not sure I'm sold on it. The polar ft60 might have been the one I should have bought.
 
Alana_as said:
well, to be honest, I haven't really used one cause I don't believe that the calories it tells me will BE ACTUALLY what I burn. cause it might say I burned 700 cal. but really I only burned 400 cal. I mean, I don't know if it's that big of a difference but I don't know what brand of HRM's are effecient enough for gauging calories, that's what I'd like.
Click to expand...

I agree with Alana... I'm sure they serve as a good reference, but I don't think the precise calorie burn calculation is that reliable. And knowing me, if I think I burned 300 more calories than I actually did, I'd treat myself to a big ol' bowl of ice cream! Not good.

Marcia
 
Polar F6 user here and it does work well for the HR. I check the Polar to my actual heartbeat here and there to make sure. Not sure about the calorie burn but it usually sounds pretty standard compared to charts, graphs, etc that you can find online. Plus you program height, weight, age, RHR into it so guess it depends on the calculation they use.

Anyway, will have a GWF soon and can then compare the two - most have said the GWF shows a lower calorie burn than the HRM does.

If you are only looking for HR then it works well. I did have a couple times the HR went wacky, but usually about the time I needed new batteries.
 
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