Choosing a Heart Rate Monitor - help needed!

LadyEm06

I have a very old Garmin that I love, but is dying slowly and I fear is becoming less accurate. I've been out of the market for a while and I'm not sure what today's technology can get me. Here's what I'm looking for:

Must Haves:
- Chest strap
- Count cardio AND strength calories (can they do strength counting accurately?)
- Has online interface/app for my iPhone/some sort of tracking feature
- Costs <$300

Nice to Haves:
- Counts BMR
- Waterproof for lap swimming
- GPS capabilities

Polar? Stick with Garmin? What model? Many thanks!

jacksonpt

Polar, garmin and suunto all make good products, pick the one that best suits your needs.

All of them will estimate calories burned based on a calculation that is largely dependent on HR. So in a manner of speaking, they will all do cardio and strength cals. Heck, if you turn it on they will do sleep cals too. However, they are typically designed to estimate calories during steady state/effort cardio. If you're doing steady state cardio, the number will be as reasonably accurate as anything you get. The further away from steady state cardio you get, the more variation you'll see in estimated calorie burn.

IMO, get out of the mindset of trying to be accurate. It's damn near impossible to be accurate. All you can do is estimate.

ScubaSteve1962

LadyEm06 wrote: »

I have a very old Garmin that I love, but is dying slowly and I fear is becoming less accurate. I've been out of the market for a while and I'm not sure what today's technology can get me. Here's what I'm looking for:

Must Haves:
- Chest strap
- Count cardio AND strength calories (can they do strength counting accurately?)
- Has online interface/app for my iPhone/some sort of tracking feature
- Costs <$300

Nice to Haves:
- Counts BMR
- Waterproof for lap swimming
- GPS capabilities

Polar? Stick with Garmin? What model? Many thanks!

Polar A300 would work for swimming, M400 would give you GPS, to have both you would have to go with the V800, but it's more than 300. Polar has a profile for strength training, but I only use it to track the days, the calorie burn is about as much as your BMR or Activity burn. Here's a link for the V800 slightly more than 300, but a reasonable price

http://www.amazon.com/Polar-Sports-Watch-Heart-Monitor/dp/B00JSO9UD2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438611645&sr=8-1&keywords=polar+v800

XavierNusum

Polar A300 with H7 HRM chest strap. Has all of your must haves plus works while swimming and has a fitness test feature for VO2max. $149.99 (for watch and chest strap HRM)

Or you can have GPS with the M400 but you lose the ability to get HR while swimming. about $229.99