Do I need an HRM?

lauralou23

When I was on a new Eliptical last night it kept telling me "SLOW DOWN HR TOO HIGH!!" I got to the point where I was going super slow and it still kept telling me my heart rate was too high and I needed to slow down!
I don't want to overwork my heart, but I want to get a good burn. I'm thinking maybe it just wasn't accurate, but my heart was pumping hard so I just don't know.
I thought maybe getting a HRM would do me good? If you think so, what are some good ones to look into?

bigislandgrrl

simple answer, Yes. Best thing I ever did! I bought the Polar FT7 - do your research, you get what you pay for!

missxlaur

HRMs are THE BEST not only for monitoring your heart during your workouts, but also for calculating your calories accurately. I have a Polar FT4 and I absolutely love it. I can't even think about working out without it.

SarahFrankel

I've never used one because the good ones are so expensive and the cheaper ones don't work as well. I have found the heart rate shown on most cardio machines to be erratic so I just go more by RPE (rate of perceived exertion) and I check my heart rate sometimes during workouts (on your neck or wrist) by counting for 10 seconds and multiplying by six to get beats per minute.

anubis609

Polar and Timex are good brands to look into when choosing HRMs. Both also track calories burned, so they may also double as a more accurate estimate of how many calories you burn per your stats + HR.

bigislandgrrl

oh, and btw. I found that my polar was compatable with my elliptical so they actually communicate! make sure you get a hrm with a chest strap, i think they are the most accurate!

kdchick99

I just bought the polar TF4 on Amazon. A HRM will make sure you are exercising in the right zones and some can count your calorie burn. I think it will be helpful to me, to see what I am actually burning.

BobbyDaniel

I bought my cheap Walmart HRM earlier this year and it has helped me out tremendously! I've been able to keep better track of my food as a result and saw better results after I started using it. So yes, you need a HRM!

jacksonpt

Need? No. But I have found mine to be one of the best non-essential.

You can also use your breathing to monitor exertion (roughly). Generally you want to be able to talk in short bursts between breaths... something like:

Hey baby *breathe* Come here *breathe* often? *breathe breathe breathe* What's *breathe* your sign? *breathe*

Krohnie

I have a garmin forerunner with a hrm, so it does gps stuff for running too, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the hrm. I really like to get a good sense of how many calories I"m burning and how hard I"m working. I sometimes just put it on to see how many calories I burn doing simple things- like moping the floor! and the first time I put the gps on and mowed the lawn was funny to see, how far I walked and the path I took as well as the calories burned. I would get one again and again and again! You won't regret it.

Lambja

I have the Garmin also, how do you get it to monitor your HR when you are indoors? Not very savy with the Garmin. LOVE it for outside running and biking. Have not figured out how to use it inside.

rileysowner

First of all, unless you were feeling you were overexerting yourself, have a pre-existing heart condition, or feel dizzy or faint; IGNORE the machine telling you your heart rate is too high. It is probably trying to keep you in the, so called, Fat Burning Zone. The thing is the fat burning zone is a myth, at least as it is put forward for weight loss. Yes, at a lower heart rate of all the calories you burn you burn more of them from fat, but at that lower exertion rate you burn a lot less calories because you are not working as hard. At a higher heart rate, outside of the "fat burning zone" you burn a lot more calories and while you don't burn as large a percent from fat, you still burn more calories from fat than you do in the same time frame in the "fat burning zone." Basically the whole concept is a complete misrepresentation of how your body burns calories. So unless you are finding yourself extremely short of breath, or your heart is pounding, or you feel dizzy ignore the machine telling you your heart rate it too high.

As for whether you need a HRM. While I would agree you don't "need" one, it has been one of the most helpful purchases I have made in terms of losing weight second only to a good digital kitchen scale for measuring my food. If you want to use it for calorie counting you MUST has a chest strap. Without one it is simply guessing at your heart rate between the times you press it to get one, and that means it is guessing at the calories burned through that stretch as well. If you get one with a chest strap it will be useful for calorie counting. There are other factors that make it more accurate, but from my reading the Polar ones seem to be among the best. One that lets you enter or will do a fitness test to determine you VO2 Max is the best. A lot of Polar ones do this.

TourThePast

Need? No. But I have found mine to be one of the best non-essential.

You can also use your breathing to monitor exertion (roughly). Generally you want to be able to talk in short bursts between breaths... something like:

Hey baby *breathe* Come here *breathe* often? *breathe breathe breathe* What's *breathe* your sign? *breathe*

LOL - but yes that's all very good advice.
Also models such as the Polar FT4 are useful because they give a reasonable estimate of calories burned.

dad106

Polar and Timex are good brands to look into when choosing HRMs. Both also track calories burned, so they may also double as a more accurate estimate of how many calories you burn per your stats + HR.

Actually Timex is one of the worst brands for HRM's unless you are a male. Most Timex's do not let you enter gender into the watch, so it assumes that you are a male when calculating calorie burns.. which means if you are a female, that you get a highly inflated calorie burn.

Polar is one of the best brands for an HRM.. the FT4 and FT7 are highly recommended around here.

To OP:
No you don't need an HRM, but they are nice to have. I'm a number geek and a bit obsessive about being precise, so thats why I have mine.