Heart Monitors For Exercise

Whether you exercise by walking, running, rowing, jumping, biking, loving or what ever else, the key ingredient to an effective workout is maintaining the proper level of intensity. You can't do that effectively without a way to measure it, which is why you want a heart rate monitor.

A heart rate monitor is a valuable personal device that allows you to monitor your heart rate in real time. This is valuable when exercising to keep your heart in the proper zone during your workouts. It's not just the duration of your workout that counts, it's the intensity. And different intensity levels are appropriate for varying goals.

Whether you are a casual jogger or walker, a runner or cyclist, hiker or climber the use of a heart rate monitor will enable you to more effectively meet your workout goals. They are useful for those working on weight loss, fitness training and/or injury-rehabilitation.

There are two basic types of heart rate monitors. These are the chest strap models and the finger sensor models. Generally speaking the chest strap models are the more accurate and are able to provide you readings while actually exercising. The finger sensor models tend to be less expensive. Their biggest drawback is that usually require you to stop what you are doing to get an reading of your heart rate.

There are quite a few different manufacturers of heart rate monitors. The best known are Polar, Timex, and Garmin although there are many other quality companies in the field as well.

A variety of additional features are possible on these devices ranging from basic features such as clocks, calendars, and calorie calculators to more advanced features including such things as stop watches, split counters, recovery heart rate monitors, speed and distance monitors, PC interfaces to download data to your personal computer, various alerts and alarms to help you stay within defined target activity zones, and coded transmissions to make sure your monitor is picking up your heart rate and not the person next to you in the gym or on a run.

Several of the monitors keep track of your location, speed etc., using GPS sensing. Others use foot pads to provide more accurate results for runners. The key in deciding which monitor you should buy comes down to your level of current and projected activity, budget and the specific features you want or require for your training regimen. Below we display a wide variety of monitors with some specific details on each.

Find the one that's best for you and put it to work. It will help you enjoy your next workout all the more, and help you get better results for the time you put in.

All of the items here are linked to Amazon which is usually the cheapest place to purchase things, and their free shipping is certainly a plus.

In selecting the individual products to be featured on this lens we started by focusing on those products which had the best review rankings as posted on Amazon. We have divided our presentation into three major categories. A mens, a womens and then a category of strapless finger sensor models. The main difference between men and women's models is typically the size of the monitor and color. Many monitors are available in both men and women's sizes, others are available in multiple colors. Further there are often multiple models with similar characteristics that we did not include just to keep the volume of monitors within reason.

Our hope is that this lens will help you find the right monitor for you, and that you will use it in good health.