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Heart rate monitors

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

13:59 / 24.10.06

I'm curious about heart rate monitors. There seems to be an ample body of evidence that using them can really help you with training, but they're expensive enough that I don't want to just plunge in. And while the pause-two-fingers-on-the-throat option is a no-cost alternative, I don't like breaking from something like rowing and losing all that sweet momentum.

I do enough different exercises (rowing, running, cycling, boxing) that I'd like to be able to compare/contrast exercise levels for each and heart rate, too.

What makes me (a bit) nervous is that there are so many HR monitors out there, at so many price ranges, that I'm not sure what is paying for useless "features" and what is paying for quality. Ideally, I'd like something that tells me what my current heart rate is. Point finale. Maybe the percentage of a programmed maximum HR, if I'm feeling fancy. I don't mind paying for a longer-lasting, better-designed monitor, but I don't want to pay for "features" I'm not going to use.

Do any of you sporting types use these? Is there a brand or model you're recommend?*

For bonus points, is there any great merit to all the geegaws that I dismiss out of hand, like calorie counters and training plans and Internet uplinks and ... stuff... that I should maybe consider more seriously as a training aid?

*My immediate lean is towards Polar, because Polar HRMs can synch up with a special receiver for my rowing machine. But I can be convinced otherwise.

pointless & uncalled for

14:04 / 24.10.06

I suppose the first question is, being that they are fairly specialist equiptment, why do you want a heart rate monitor, or more accurately, what are you trying to achieve in terms of fitness and how do you feel that will be aided by a record of your heart rate during exercise activities?

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

14:40 / 24.10.06

I have it on reasonably good authority -- and multiple sources -- that figuring out your maximum heart rate (220 minus your age, if memory serves) and then training at various percentages of that rate is, well, a good thing. Here's one Google result.

Since I do a number of different aerobic exercises, I'm interested in seeing which does what to my heart rate.

In terms of achieving, I'm trying to stay in good shape, not lose weight or train for anything in particular.

In terms of why use one, I'd like to have some measure of how different exercises work in terms of HR, as mentioned above, but also an indication of when I'm getting too "settled in" to a particular thing or another. Lots of routine exercise using the same method tends to make the body adapt, and I think this would be a good way to know when I need to shake things up a little.

11:28 / 25.10.06

I would say that the only functions you need on an HRM are current HR, % of max HR and average HR during the entire workout. Furthermore, it might be good to have an alarm that goes off when and if you move above or below a target HR range. I'd be willing to bet that outside of the world of elite or competitive athletes, most other functions often found on HRM's are rarely used. For instance I have a very expensive Polar model (S625x), that is not only progammable in terms of for instance, interval training, but also has a foot pod attaching to my trainer that measures how far I've run. I can then upload the entire workout to a computer and analyse it via software which shows graphs of heart rate against speed, distance and altitude! It's all very nice but in reality I only use the distance measuring function and a target HR zone of less than 70% of max HR!

Speaking of max HR, 220 minus age is a poor measure of max HR. I'm 40 so should by that method have a max of 180. The last time I measured it my max was 206 obtained by way of a self-monitored cardiac stress test on a treadmill! Type "heart rate" into Wikipedia for a good article on this....

A good book on heart rate training, training zones and obtaining max HR is "Heart Rate Training for the Compleat Idiot" by John L Parker (spelling of "Compleat" is deliberately wrong). It's badly written and very annoying but gets to the very heart (ha ha) of cardiac training without many of the myths peddled by others.