Heart Rate Monitors Guide

Are you getting the most of your fitness program? Whatever your fitness goal is you will find a heart rate monitor essential to accurately measure your heart rate during exercise and help you to develop a more effective training program.

When heart rate monitors where first introduced only competition athletes where using them to enhance performance and increase their chances to win! Nowadays, more and more people are relying on one and it has become an essential tool to help you in your everyday life. Whether exercising to lose weight, to run a marathon, walking, mountain climbing, cycling or simply to maintain your hearth health you can always find your right heart rate monitor.

We understand that with such a wide range of heart rate monitors on the market, it may seem impossible to choose the perfect one for you and you might end up with a very basic one or with one with too may advanced features and so complicated that you will have to carry the instructions manual when using it! Don’t worry, it can happen to anyone! For this reason, we are confident that with this guide, you will end up with the perfect heart rate monitor for you and your athletic needs.

Do I need a Heart Rate Monitor?

The purpose of a heart rate monitor is to help you to improve the efficiency of training and monitor your progress while training at your own ideal pace. They will measure and record your heart rate during an entire workout giving you immediate and accurate feedback about the work level of your heart.

Have you ever felt that you didn’t know whether you were giving the maximum or relaxing too much during workout? Indeed, a heart rate monitor can function as your personal coach or ideal training partner and prevent over-training as well as under-training giving you objective observation. Furthermore, it can help you to minimize the opportunity of injury if over-training while maximising the efficiency of your training.

You need to workout at the right intensity no matter what your exercise goal is. Heart Rate Monitors are an extremely useful training tool and will help you monitor your fitness depending on your heart rate and determine if you are getting the best from your fitness program regulating the frequency and intensity of workouts.

What kind of features are you looking for?

There are so many types and styles of heart rate monitors on the market that it might seem quite challenging choosing the right one for you. The most popular has two components: a chest strap that functions as a transmitter and a wrist unit that looks like a digital wristwatch and acts as a receiver but, if the signal is not coded, there can be interferences caused by a nearby individual using a heart rate monitor. You can also find accurate strapless heart rate monitors. The choice it’s yours!

Every single heart rate monitor on the market will measure your heart rate but depending on the model you choose, you can find a variety of functions from simple ones such as alarm system, personal target heart rate zones, manual and automatic heart rate limit. More sophisticated features will allow your heart rate monitor to download data to your PC and even analyse it and design custom workouts based on your performance. You need to find the right heart rate monitor that fulfils perfectly your training needs and helps you progress and ultimately reach your goal. Therefore, don’t make the mistake of buying a really basic one if training for a marathon or on the contrary, buying a complex one just to impress your friends at the gym.

We have found that the most important features when buying a heart rate monitor are:

- A strap that fits properly. It can be a problem if it’s loose as the heart reading won’t be accurate. Also, for women we strongly recommend a heart monitor without strap as unfortunately strap heart monitors have been designed with men in mind. Alternatively, there are sports bras designed to hold the transmitter.
- Easy-to-read display and big buttons to access the functions. It is important that you can see the numbers when exercising and have easy access to the functions.
- Training zone indicator. You can set a personal target zone and enter your limits settings for your target heart rate. More sophisticated models will also provide a fat burning zone training program and will automatically determine your calorie usage.
- Alarm function. It can be a light or sound and indicates when you depart your desired heart rate zone.
- Memory. It can be very basic to allow your monitor to recall your workout time and the time you spent in a target range or quite complex and record multiple workout results without erasing earlier records.
- Data analysis. Some heart rate monitors will record and analyse your maximum heart rate and your lowest heart rate and provide you with average heart rates for the total exercise period, time spent above, within and below each target zone. Other options include altitude measurement and estimation of your Vo2.
- Computer Compatibility. Some higher-end models allow you to download the data to your computer to help you track and analyse it.

How does it work?

The only way to measure your heart rate accurately during exercise is using a heart rate monitor. It will measure your exercise intensity and you wont have to do any guesswork anymore as it continuously displays your heart rate on your wrist unit. Therefore, you will enjoy training more!

With some models you just have to set a maximum and a minimum heart-rate goal for your exercise and the monitor will use a visual or sound alarm to indicate when you are straying outside your target zone. It will work like your personal trainer!

To monitor your workout you just have to determine your estimated maximum heart rate, your current fitness level and your fitness goals so you can construct a target zone for your workouts just like a personal trainer would do. A target heart rate zone is the most practical method of measuring exercise intensity.

Your maximum heart rate is the highest number of beats per minute your heart can reach in normal circumstances.

Follow the guide below to indicate your target heart according to your age and physical shape.

Sticking to your zone will assure you the most effective cardiovascular workout.

As your conditioning improves, you will eventually find that your workout no longer challenges your system and consequently you will need to work at higher levels to perform the same exercise. In other words, you will get fitter without realising it!

Our Recommendation

We have browsed through the web to look for the best heart rate monitor deals for you. We recommend SweatbandFitness.co.uk a leading supplier of fitness equipment. Sweatband Fitness offers high quality heart rate monitors and at extremely competitive prices.

Below are a just a few of the top heart rate monitors on offer:

For the exercise beginner
	Polar A3 Heart Rate Monitor- £52.00
	Let your heart rate monitor guide you like a personal trainer. The a3™ has the new Zone Pointer™ feature that helps keep you in your Target Zone. Every exercise in your TZ puts you one step closer to your goal. File storage allows you to view previous workout data to help establish goals for your current workout. For more information please click HERE.
	Polar A5 Heart Rate Monitor - £65.00
	This monitor calculates your Body Mass Index, determines your fitness level using the Self Walk Test, follow the calories you consume during your workout session and offers manual and automatic heart rate limit settings. An excellent motivational tool! For more information please click HERE.

For the fitness enthusiast
	Polar M32 Heart Rate Monitor £79.00
	The M32™ is great for someone looking for some extra guidance with their workouts. The M32 will determine your target zone based on how your body feels for that specific day, preventing you from over-exercising and possible injury. For more information please click HERE
	Polar M62 Heart Rate Monitor with Chest Belt £94.00
	The Polar M62 comes with new the Polar Wearlink chest strap with self change batteries and a quicker "OwnZone Advanced" test that calculates your own personal high and low excercise zone. For more information please click HERE.

For the serious athlete
	Mio Lifestyle Heart Monitor Watch - £94.99
	MIO is a new and unique lifestyle watch that takes your accurate heart rate without a chest strap. It stores your personal data (birth date, gender, weight and resting heart rate) to calculate the percent of your maximum heart when working out, your calories burned during the day, etc. For more information please click HERE.
	Polar S610i Heart Rate Monitor - £154.00
	This model is designed to interface with any computer that has infrared capabilities so you can plan your training sessions on the PC software and upload them to the wrist receiver. It has all the basic features but also advanced ones such as data analisis, calorie usage, calculation of average heart rate for the duration of exercise or each lap, etc. Excellent for the serious athlete who needs detailed fitness information! For more information please click HERE.