HRM yes or no

Becca21

should i get one. what are they good for ive been losing weight for over a year do i really need a HRM.

mowu

I love my HRM....I would not want to go without it......

Do YOU really need a HRM.......seems to me that if you have to ask and you are otherwise satisfied with how you manage your workouts you don't.

A HRM for the average person working out a few times a week with no need or intent to follow up on how hard you train or need to quantify training according to a set of numbers is just another gadget to keep track of - for that person it would be another gadget to keep track of and (s)he would probably be better of spending money on something else.

Being a trained engineer I like spreadsheets and ranking/quantifying my work-outs, so for me a HRM is a great gadget from which I gain hours of fun number-crunching and funny charts.
The side-effect of this is that I constantly strive to do as good as or better than last session - but if I didn't have my HRM I'd probably find some other benchmarks to challenge.

KateFitness89

I love my HRM! It was the best fitness related investment I ever made. It really helps you figure out which workouts to continue and which workouts to do away with. It also pushes you to work harder during the workouts and therefore burn more calories. I would definitely get one that calculates calories based on your heart rate. I definitely saw an improvement in my weight loss.


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iceqieen

I like my HRM. It makes much more accurate calorie count than MFP, so I am less likely to over or under eat (or when I do, it is not by accident :P).

Also helped me realise where I should be at when I exercise. I was alternating between working too hard, making it uncomfortable, and too slow, making it useless. Keeping within a "zone" I can manage my exercise level better, and get more from my workout.

BrianSharpe

Do you need one? Probably not, but they are a very useful tool to help you more accurately determine calories burned during exercise. They're also useful (if you're a data junkie like me) to help track improvements in cardiovascular fitness.

I know quite a few runners that run solely on perceived exertion and use a stopwatch to time their runs.

Gadgets are no replacement for discipline and hard work and, I suspect, some people have actually slowed their own fitness gains by slavishly training in the "fat burning" zone.

It's your call.

iceqieen

Gadgets are no replacement for discipline and hard work and, I suspect, some people have actually slowed their own fitness gains by slavishly training in the "fat burning" zone.

but can also help, if you were previously going well over recommended heartrate (close to 200) but can now go for longer in a bit lower area (160). Ofcourse its all about learning to listen to your own body, but some of us need a gadget to help us understand what is going on A person who wants to be lazy, will be lazy regardless of gadgets - though she might use it as an excuse.