HRM for boxing training

Mythicalsoul

Hi All,

I've been doing a bit of research in the forums and online for a heart rate monitor. The main times I want to use it are during my boxing circut training, muay thai, bodyweight principles, skipping, and walking.

I'm looking for a decent heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned, with no need to input or upload as I can do that myself. My main trouble is it needs to be thin enough/functional under my boxing wraps. One that doesn't look like a cheap child's watch would be great as well.

Any recommendations?

Should I abandon all hope and just calculate calories burned based on web research?

ttippie2000

I have a Polar heart rate monitor that I tend to put in my pocket (if I have one). It sometimes works, but sometimes it gets bumped and goes back to watch mode and I get nothing. I looked at a number of other devices with boxing, MT in mind. I thought I would lose the clippable fitbit models (my wife has lost 3 and she's WAY more together than I am). I looked at the fitbit wrist thing, but wrist just doesn't work for boxing cause of the wraps. It doesn't work so well for BJJ either.

What I wound up going with is a device that mounts on your upper arm. I like the one by BodyMedia, um, the Link is what I bought, but they have several. I can pretty much work all my standup game as well as my grappling. It seems to measure all that stuff just fine.

As far as manual calorie input, I do that for swimming and bicycling (the bodymedia device I have doesn't do bicycling so well). You can do that too. I have evolved a rule of thumb that works about as well. I count the number of t-shirts I go through in a workout. For example, two t-shirts an hour (at normal room temperatures) is about 1k calories for me.

Mythicalsoul

Thanks, that is really helpful. I'm assuming the arm bands are made in mind with flexing muscles, lots of movement, and sweat while still giving an accurate reading? I will definitely check out the model.

Do you find yours comfortable?

Why do you think it doesn't do biking as well? I've read it's not so good for activities where there isn't as much arm movement, which seems odd as it should be tracking your heart rate, not your movement.

That's a great way to keep track for yourself! I think I won't get to that stage though :happy:

MollieA912

I have a polar with the watch. It was a pain in the *kitten* with gloves but I tried either wrapping it around my bra strap or tank top and that worked alright. Only had it switch to watch mode once.

Mythicalsoul

Hmm, that's an interesting tactic. I will have to give that a shot if that is the model I decide. Thanks for the feedback