Best HR Monitor + HIIT Android App?

Smaronoah

TL; DR: Looking for recommendations on a heart rate chest strap and a good android app to track my workouts while road cycling and elliptical at the gym.

Long story: I'm looking at the Polar H10 chest strap, and I have an LG Aristo smartphone. I've gotten lost in the huge number of apps available on Google Play. I honestly don't care if I have to pay for the app, I just want it to work without being a headache to navigate. Strava is the only one I recognize, but it looks tailored to competing with your Personal Best times. I'm looking for an app that helps me stay in the HIIT heart rate zones regardless of what workout I'm doing.

Thanks in advance for saving me from the rabbit hole of Google Play apps !!

NorthCascades

There's no such thing as a HIIT heart rate. Heart rate changes too slowly, by the time is reflecting the work you did, the interval had already ended.

tess5036

In addition to the above advice, if you want a HRM with an app to monitor in real time, understanding the heart rate will vary in terms of how fast it comes down based on fitness and other factors, there are there. I use a Myzone belt, and find it very useful.

NorthCascades

I'd recommend one of the Wahoo chest straps if you want a heart rate monitor. The reason is they can transmit your HR over both Bluetooth and ANT+, which means they'll work with your phone and with a dedicated bike computer.

If you need to do HIIT, a better way is to find a hill that takes about 30 seconds at race pace, and do repeats. Strava will tell you your VAM which works better than HR for this.

Don't do HIIT for weight loss, it doesn't burn many calories and leaves you needing too much recovery time.

MeanderingMammal

Smaronoah wrote: »

I'm looking for an app that helps me stay in the HIIT heart rate zones regardless of what workout I'm doing.

What heart rate zones do you mean? I'm with Cascades on this; don't do true HIIT using an HRM but the way you'v phrased the question suggests that you mean something other than HIIT.

robertw486

Strava works fairly well for biking, but I've never used it to track elliptical workouts. I think it just uses a standard work effort similar to MFP, but I'm not sure on that. It does record HR with the right version, if that is important to you.

I agree with the others on HIIT and HR levels. If you are doing true HIIT or even hard intervals you will have HR lag, then as your intervals continue you will have elevated HR even when starting the next interval. This will vary with interval vs rest time, but the HR is really a useless metric other than seeing what your max levels were.

If I remember correctly, doing Tabata intervals on the elliptical I had a low HR of somewhere around 170 by the last interval or two. And recorded my highest ever HR as well doing the same thing on another day. But in either case, work is work, and I could have burned more calories at a brisk steady state for the same time period.