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The
interest in heart rate monitors has, literally, exploded over
the last few years.
Whether you are a fitness enthusiast, a budding
professional athlete, or on a weight management program, you
can maximize the benefits of any training program with a heart
rate monitor.
To lose weight, your goal should be to burn
the most amount of calories possible per exercise session.
this means balancing your exercise intensity with the length
of your work out. Finding your correct target heart rate
zone is an effective way of achieving your results.
As an athlete, or if you're training for a
competition, it's important to improve your fitness consistently
while avoiding the risk of injury or overtraining.
This is something that needs to be measured objectively, which
is only avaialable with a monitor. For example, for long distance
runners or cyclists, heart rate monitors are the most effective
tool to help measure and align the anaerobic threshold.
With so many varieties of heart rate monitors,
which one is the right one to choose? Here are a few standards
to consider when making your decision...
Do you know what your Exercise Objectives are?
The
large variety of heart rate monitors will considerably reduce
itself once you know what your exercise objectives are going
to be. Is your objective to lose weight? Improve your fitness
level? Or do you strive to become a serious athlete?
Unless you're going to be doing some serious
training, you won't need to spring for the most expensive
and sophisticated monitor on the market as you won't use 80%
of its offered features.
Features... Pros and Cons...
Using a heart rate monitor consistently, with
every work out, is key. If the monitor that you choose takes
too much effort to work out, or too complicated, it's very
likely that you won't use it very often.
However, a few additions can help to keep you
motivated and can sometimes offer an actual purpose. To give
you an idea, some heart rate monitors offer a built in fitness
test facility. These monitors will predict and measure your
level of aerobic fitness, with which you can build and monitor
your fitness program.
If you're a seasoned athlete, you probably
already know what you are looking for. One thing to consider
is whether you need a heart rate monitor that is able to link,
directly, to your PC. Are you looking to analyse and track
your heart rate data, and to what extent? This feature obviously
costs a little more, but knowing whether you need this option
will help to narrow down your selection further.
Pricing
Heart rate monitors generally range anywhere
between $50 to $400. For most people, the ideal monitor will
fall somewhere in the mid price range. Even serious athletes
purchase mid priced heart rate monitors for $200.00 to $250.00.
But for the most part, if you're paying more than $150.00,
you may be paying too much.
Look at heart rate monitors like runners. Even
though no one wants to buy the cheapest pair on the market,
they're still more than adequate to do the job. It's really
only the priviledged few that really require the best.
The rest of us settle for what we can afford.
There
is quite a number of manufacturers such as, Acumen, Reebok,
Freestyle, Heart Talker, and Cardiosport. These are just a
few of the heart rate monitor creators available. However,
without a doubt, Polar is the most sought after and largest
retailer around.
According
to an article, from 1998, in the Journal of Sports Sciences,
"Polar Heart Rate Monitors have for fifteen years, been
recognized as the most accurate tools for heart rate monitoring
and registering in the field."
Comparing prices, for heart rate monitors,
can be difficult because of the sheer volume of different
brands and models. All with varying features and options.
Polar heart rate monitors are no more and no less expensive
than another brand.
If you are looking to buy a heart rate monitor,
we suggest that you give serious consideration to Polar. They
are the professionals choice of most commercial fitness equipment
retailers, coaches, and athletes.
For
a full review on Polar's Heart Rate Monitors, click here
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