Heart Rate Monitors
Heart rate monitoring is a crucial step in meeting exercise goals. Overworking your body puts you at risk of fatigue and injury, while underworking your body will not help you accomplish your fitness goals. Going beyond your target heart rate pushes your muscles into anaerobic mode, producing lactic acid and causing fatigue. This directly counteracts your ability to work within your target heart range for the minimum 20 minutes required, thus it reduces the amount of fat that can be burned.
Now that you understand the importance of monitoring your heart rate, it's time to figure out what kind of heart rate monitor 
will best help you track your health and fitness progress. There is no need to spend extra money on a plethora of useless features when all you want is to measure the number of heart beats per minute. However, if you plan to do some serious training or you have very specific weight loss goals, get the most full-featured heart rate monitor you can reasonably afford.
Types of Heart Rate Monitors
|
|
|
|
Basic - For improving basic cardiac fitness.
- Simple to use, minimal number of buttons, and an easy to read interface.
- Inexpensive, starting at £15.
- Limited features often only measure heart rate per minute.
- Perfect for walkers or the basic exerciser.
|
Weight Loss - Tracks calories burned plus heart beats per minute.
- Great for keeping motivated on your weight loss program.
- Slightly more expensive, from £25.
- Often they feature a calendar, clock, and auto target zone calculations.
|
Fitness Enthusiast - Detailed information on performance for reaching particular fitness goals.
- Includes numerous features: stopwatch, programmable target zone monitor, recovery time, and more.
- Prices start at around £35.
- Useful for seasoned exercisers to set goals and keep them.
|
Serious Athlete - For athletes in training.
- Can cost up to £150 for feature-rich models.
- Includes lap time monitor, time spent in target heart rate and in recovery, interval timer, and much more.
- PC compatibility for storing results.
- Optional dehydration monitors.
|
Related Products
