FAO HRM Users (but not serious athletes) - is it worth the investment?

WelshPhil1975 wrote: »

Can any HRM users shed light on this for me? Would it be worthwhile for my needs?

I wouldn't descrie myself as a serious athlete, I run up to Half Marathon, on trails, at the moment and am aiming for a marathon next season. I use a Garmin GPS with HRM, having previously had a Polar FT60.

fwiw I stopped using the Polar as it wasn't actually giving me anything useful. The Garmin records my HR trace alongside my elevation, pace, and mapping data.

As a training tool it's useful, for what you describe probably not. For me it helps to demonstrate improvements in my fitness, and reflect on how I respond to changes in pace, elevation, and different types of terrain.

Note that "fat burning zone" is a very outdated concept and largely discredited. Zone training has a place for the serious athlete that has access to lab facilities to assess VO2Max and lactate threshold. It helps to improve oth of those to train in an appropriate range. Without the supporting data, it's a bit of a waste of time.

Pointless for resistance training.

pinkiezoom wrote: »

.....which seems much more accurate than the gym machines.

It might be, it might not be. They might be equally inaccurate, or the idea of accuracy might be completely spurious in this sense.

pinkiezoom wrote: »

in my case I would say it is "much more" accurate as the machines at the gym were giving me stupid high cals burned, and even with my limited knowledge I knew it was too much.

Given that there are so many variables I'd contend that you have no idea whether it's more acurate or not. Particularly given that the FT4 doesn't account for most of the variables that apply.

Personally I let me Garmin synch to MFP, but mainly because it means I don't have to log the activity manually. The key point is consistency, although even that can depend on the workout.

I rarely eat back my cals so not a huge issue for me but nice to be able to keep track of the training I do.

Now that's a different debate, and again lots of variables. If you're only burning 200 cals and have a 2000 cal daily target then fair enough. If you have a 1200 cal daily (1600 for men) then you leave yourself vulnerable to driving yourself into ill health from under-eating.

My sessions start at 600 cals and go anything up to 2000 cals for a long workout. Given that I've got a 2200 daily target then I can't afford to not eath back what I expend.

If you are mainly walking don't bother - use an online calculator or a free app on your smart phone.
The so-called "fat burn zone" hasn't any relevance at all - please do a little more research and you will see that overall calorie burn is king not what HR zone you exercise in.

IMHO opinion unless you are using it as a training aid you are wasting your money.

I have a FT7 and not a serious athlete. I love it, really motivating.

msf74 wrote: »

indianwin2001 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

If you are mainly walking don't bother - use an online calculator or a free app on your smart phone.
The so-called "fat burn zone" hasn't any relevance at all - please do a little more research and you will see that overall calorie burn is king not what HR zone you exercise in.

IMHO opinion unless you are using it as a training aid you are wasting your money.

In the book "Heart rate training" by Roy Benson (which you can find on Amazon) he details exactly why your post is inaccurate and false

That's a bit of a tall order isn't it? Having to read the entire book and then figure out what was wrong about the initial post?

I have to say I agree with the previous poster. If a person's primary concern when training is fat loss then worrying about being in the "fat burning zone" is a bit pointless. It is true that at lower intensities the body utilises a great percentage of fat in comparison to stored carbs/glycogen. However the actual amount of fat used in even a long session isn't great. A person is better off therefore concentrating on doing the exercise they enjoy and that which secures the greatest amount of total calories burned.

That said, from a training (rather than fat loss) focus low intensity training is awesome and forms the foundation of a decent endurance training plan.

Horses for courses innit?

Thats true--The book is written from a "training" perspective and not for losing weight. I forgot the forum I am on when I saw this thread. Plus I agree with everything in your post

indianwin2001 wrote: »

msf74 wrote: »

indianwin2001 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

If you are mainly walking don't bother - use an online calculator or a free app on your smart phone.
The so-called "fat burn zone" hasn't any relevance at all - please do a little more research and you will see that overall calorie burn is king not what HR zone you exercise in.

IMHO opinion unless you are using it as a training aid you are wasting your money.

In the book "Heart rate training" by Roy Benson (which you can find on Amazon) he details exactly why your post is inaccurate and false

That's a bit of a tall order isn't it? Having to read the entire book and then figure out what was wrong about the initial post?

I have to say I agree with the previous poster. If a person's primary concern when training is fat loss then worrying about being in the "fat burning zone" is a bit pointless. It is true that at lower intensities the body utilises a great percentage of fat in comparison to stored carbs/glycogen. However the actual amount of fat used in even a long session isn't great. A person is better off therefore concentrating on doing the exercise they enjoy and that which secures the greatest amount of total calories burned.

That said, from a training (rather than fat loss) focus low intensity training is awesome and forms the foundation of a decent endurance training plan.

Horses for courses innit?

Thats true--The book is written from a "training" perspective and not for losing weight. I forgot the forum I am on when I saw this thread. Plus I agree with everything in your post

Cool.

Unfortunately, and mostly due to the idiotic ramblings of so called weight loss / fitness "experts", low intensity training has gotten a bad rap recently and the two issues often get mixed up.

chunkytfg wrote: »

FWIW - I use a 'every bell and whistle' HRM and other than using it a good way of logging miles and keeping an idea of effort while i'm running/cycling I don't use it to anywhere near its full potential.

It might be worth looking at just getting a Bluetooth/ANT+ enabled HR strap if you have a smart phone as you may be able to link them together to an app like strava.

That's a good point. I'm not sure Strava supports HRM monitoring but Endomondo certainly does.

That said, I got the Polar FT4 on a deal an Amazon and it works out a little cheaper than buying a strap and phone holder together!

The best investments in 2014 for me were good sport shoes, my blendtec blender and my Polar RCX5 multisportswatch.

I went from C25K to running HMs and the watch helped me tons with heart rate zone training.

Also, while I am fully aware that calorie expenditures are only estimates, nevertheless the multisportswatch encouraged me to work out longer and more and better. I love earning calories, particularly as I am on 1500 a day which does not allow me many treats. I do not eat all of these calories back, but a part of them.

I have been maintaining my weight for a couple of months now and it works for me very well.

I would have a good look at the new a Polar M400 which got great reviews. See dcrainmaker's extensive review.

Best of luck with your decision
Stef.

See Azdak blog on heart rate monitor, it's very good. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472

Choice between Ant+/Bluetooth BLE communication protocol is dependent on your sport and gadget for tracking. Cycling for the most part has adopted Ant+ as well as most gym equipment. Bluetooth is more in line with personal devices like smart phones (some like Samsung S4, HTC One, etc has both). There are plus/minus for both protocols.

I use HR monitor for cycling to keep me in the zone since I can't afford a power meter yet. I also use IpBike to record and Golden Cheetah (but can be setup to work with just HR) to track my ride matrices (speed, distance, cadence, training stress, etc). IpBike has calculations for virtual power. VP is very susceptible to environmental factors (wind, climbs, speed, cadence, etc) so it's not very reliable outdoors but on a trainer (I have a Kurt Kinetic road machine) it very good. The HR monitor keeps me from blowing up on rides when I cannot monitor my power outputs and stay in the aerobic zone for fat utilization. For anaerobic training (power - sprints/climbs) it's ok and better than nothing; need lose another 15+ pounds before I'll start working on that (for overall power increase and thus faster speeds).

I hate running. If I do run, I'll use a HR monitor as it's the best matrix to keep me in the zone. Step counting is garbage as far as I'm concern (although I wish I had that when I was in the Army for a totally different application). It gives you no indication of intensity unless it is also coupled with pace. Both would give an estimation of calorie expenditures but it's as good as the dirt if you don't know how that actually correlate to your body's metabolic rate (same goes with power in cycling but it far more accurate as we are talking about a few percentages as to complete unknown/enigma). If you match the test subjects used in deriving the correlations, congrats, but hardly anyone does. That said, it's better than nothing and coupled with careful monitoring one can dial-in based on those results.

Last but not least, anything you can use to monitor your progress is better than nothing. Only the very trained athletes has the skill (and will, as well as the coaching) to be subjective enough to determine if a workout is on par. The rest of us need some kind of matrix for evaluation. So long you know the limitation and make adjustments, anything will work as long as it's not colored by subjectivity.

sijomial wrote: »

indianwin2001 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

If you are mainly walking don't bother - use an online calculator or a free app on your smart phone.
The so-called "fat burn zone" hasn't any relevance at all - please do a little more research and you will see that overall calorie burn is king not what HR zone you exercise in.

IMHO opinion unless you are using it as a training aid you are wasting your money.

In the book "Heart rate training" by Roy Benson (which you can find on Amazon) he details exactly why your post is inaccurate and false

I see in the later discussion you got the fat loss/weight loss context of my post, sorry if that wasn't clear.
That was why I put the line:
"IMHO opinion unless you are using it as a training aid you are wasting your money."

Heart rate zone training for someone serious about training for cardio performance is a valuable tool. I'm a long distance cyclist and HR zone training is a big part of my routine.
Unfortunately the original (and valuable) use of HRMs seems to be getting lost with people buying into some mythical accuracy of HRMs for calorie counts.

Yes I agree with you. My take is on this forum,MOST people are on here to lose weight so the fitness portion takes a back seat to weight loss. The more serious fitness enthusiasts know how to use a HRM for training purposes and calories burned is secondary

WelshPhil1975 wrote: »

I have also recently started turning the brisk walks into walks interspersed with periods of jogging with the hope that in time (not too long) I can go jogging regularly (I want to do a 5k next year if I can – 12 months ago I would barely walk too far if I could avoid it).

Notwithstanding anything else, I'd suggest using a structured plan to get up to running 5K, which should only take 3-4 months. I'm assuming that you can already comfortably walk for 30 minutes so a Couch to 5K plan will give you some structure, and help you learn to run without over-stretching yourself and getting an injury.

As most of the 5K and 10K plans are based on time you can get by with just an MP3 player or smartphone. Use an app like Runkeeper or Endomondo to track your running performance.

I only really started to exploit the HRM as a training tool when I was between the 10K and half marathon distances.

pinkiezoom wrote: »

I also have the polar FT4 as poster above says, I did'nt need all the features of the FT7.
I love mine, gives me a good indication which zone i am in, and how long i have worked out for, and also my calories, which seems much more accurate than the gym machines.

I really need to learn all the features of the FT7 lol

I basically use mine for heartrate and calories. If you log your calories to see how much you take in, it just makes sense to me that you would keep track of how many you use as well.

MeanderingMammal wrote: »

I only really started to exploit the HRM as a training tool when I was between the 10K and half marathon distances.

Can I ask how your training changed, if it indeed it did change, when using your HRM (presumably as a guide to intensity?) Also, do you think would have been useful for shorter distances or is it more for longer events (say above 10 miles or so) would you say?

I have an HRM and a fitbit.

From what you describe, I think you could benefit from an HRM for 3 reasons.
1. tracking calories burnt during steady state cardio. As I understand it, you can get a more accurate calorie burn value from a device which allows you to configure it with your personal details (eg resting heart rate). afaik not all do this.

2. motivational tool - For me the motivational tool is very effective. I push myself harder if my heart is not in my target range.

3. the heart health issues you mentioned.If you plan to buy one eventually they really do last a long time, so you might as well...

If I were choosing an HRM again, I would try to buy one that syncs more effective with MFP (especially considering that my fitbit would have counted the steps, too). It is possible to manually enter calories burned into MFP and tell it the start time of the exercise, but I would just rather a system that did it all for me automatically not sure if it exists. perhaps you could ask in the fitbit group.