vendredi 17 mai 2013

How to Buy a Heart Rate Monitor

By Natalie van Dasshal


A heart rate monitor senses and displays your heart rate. Walkers can use heart rate to adjust the intensity of their walk -- speeding up or slowing down to stay in their chosen heart rate zone. Two walkers going the same speed may be in different zones -- one barely working at all, the other near maximum and straining. As your fitness improves, you can walk faster at the same heart rate.

The most accurate heart rate monitors use a chest strap which fits snugly around your chest just below the breast. The transmitter detects the electrical activity of your heart just like an ECG. It relays this to a display, usually worn like a wristwatch, although some use earphones instead, or transmit to apps via Bluetooth. It is important for the strap to maintain contact or you get wild readings.

Exercising without accurately monitoring your intensity is like driving a car without a speedometer. It poses uncertainty (is your intensity level appropriate?), risk (are working too hard for your body to handle?), and health concerns (is your speed improving or hurting your health?).

A "basic" heart rate monitors indicate your "continuous heart rate", allow you to program your own training zone at varying "percentages of maximum heart rate", time your exercise, and provide a summary indicating average and maximum heart rate during the exercise. This means every heart rate monitor sold by Eastern Mountain Sports allows you to tune your workout to an appropriate intensity. In their off time, heart rate monitors are cool sport watches too!

Besides features, shop for how easy it is to use. Can you read the numbers easily? Does it have a backlight for use in low light? Are there so many features that you will have to carry the manual to figure out how to use it each time? Are the buttons well labeled and easy to find and push?

Even though a heart rate monitor can be an excellent way to judge the intensity of your workout, it's still important to pay attention to your body and not rely solely on the monitor for feedback. Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and the "Talk Test" are two other ways to know how hard you're working.




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