Tag Archives: Monitor

Why Use A Heart Rate Monitor Watch?

Heart rate monitor watch is a tool that helps you to keep track of the effectiveness of your training. It’s a great tool for athlete who wants to have safe and results orientated training. It’s also a great tool for those who are not athletes but just want to keep track of their health. Monitoring your heart rate will give you feedback on how you are adapting to your work out.

Your heart is the most important organ in your body. It pumps blood which carries oxygen and nutrients to every part of your body. By monitoring your heart rate you can reduce the danger from over training and still get result by staying in the target zone. Of course you can use your physical sense or how fast you are breathing to gauge how you are doing. But with a heart rate monitor watch, you can have a very accurate measurement of your heart rate and therefore can plan your training accordingly.

The Benefits Of Using A Heart Rate Monitor Watch

  • Show your body’s reaction to training or exercise
  • Help you train in a consistent pace and prevent you from over trained
  • Help you to plan an effective training session to produce a desirable result
  • Help you to progress gradually in training
  • Provide accurate data for you to make adjustment to your training program

Heart rate monitor watch can drastically improve the quality of your training. It can give you accurate heart rate reading during your workout. With this detailed information you can tell if you are over training or slacking off.

Unless you have a professional coach, you will not know how much, how hard and how fast to train. With the help a heart rate monitor watch, you will know how to train and when to stop. Depending on individual physical fitness level, everyone reacts differently to physical strain and exercise. All these reactions can be recorded on a heart rate monitor watch and different work out plan can be devised for each individual.

Work Out Session With A Heart Rate Monitor Watch

Put on your heart rate monitor watch with a set target zone and start to warm up slowly. A proper warm-up will help your heart to increase blood flow to your muscle gradually. It will help your body to become more flexible and help prevent injury. Increase the intensity of your work out gradually until your heart rate reaches your target zone.

When your heart rate target zone is reached, maintain your work out intensity for the amount of time that you have planned. Make sure you stay within your target zone and be sensitive to your body reactions. If you are feeling hard to breath, you will need to slow down and set a lower target zone in your next training session.

Cooling down gradually is very important for every training session. Reducing your work out intensity and get your heart rate below your target zone and then to normal slowly. After that , you will need to stretch your muscles slowly and steadily  to prevent stiffness and injuries.

Make sure you have recovered from your previous training before you start another training session. Make use of the data recorded in your heart rate monitor watch to plan your next training session.

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What Are Heart Rate Monitor Watches?

Heart rate monitor watches are heart rate monitoring devices designed as watches to conveniently monitor heart rate during sport trainings and exercises. There are many manufacturers for these devices such as Polar, Timex, Omron, Suunto, Garmin, etc. Heart rate monitor watches have many different designs and models, from the inexpensive and basic models to very advance and sophisticated models which cost more.

How to use heart rate monitor watches?

Heart rate monitor watches can be used to measure heart rate at rest, monitoring heart rate during training and helped to stay in target zone. It can also be used to determine maximum heart rate (HRmax) by the reading when you are going all out in your training. An easy way to determine your HRmax is by subtracting your age from the number 220. Of course this is just an estimate because different people with different physical fitness level and health condition will have different HRmax. Regular training will strengthen your heart and lower your maximum heart rate gradually.

When working out, it is advisable to stay within your target zone with the help of a heart rate monitor watch. Your heart rate target zone should be in the range between 60% and 80% of your maximum heart rate. Working within your target zone is most effective and produce better result for your training.

Which type of heart rate monitor watches should you buy?

When you are buying a heart rate monitor watch for the first time, the wide selections of different brand names, designs and models can be overwhelming. But if you stop and think about the purpose of buying it, the decision can be quite simple.

For people just want to exercise to keep fit and healthy or just want to burn up some fat to stay slim, a basic model which can show heart rate (of course) and calories burned should be suffice. For elderly people, you might want to chose a model with large display for easy reading.

For athletes or sport persons who want to do serious training, you might want to chose one that can provide more data for analysis. Some advance models can help you to create training program based on your physical fitness level and training goal.

For bikers, long distant and cross country runners, you might want to have one with built in GPS which can measures your speed and tracks your distant during your work out. Some models can even record your route so that you can view later with Google Earth.

The cost of heart rate monitor watches vary from below 50 up-to hundreds of dollars. You can compare models and prices online and buy locally or you can buy directly online. It is more convenient to buy online and prices are more competitive. Amazon.com stores a wide range and different brand names of heart rate monitor watches.

 

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Strapless Heart Rate Monitor

Strapless heart rate monitor does not require one to wear a strap on the chest to get heart rate reading. Conventional heart rate monitor requires a strap to be worn on the chest. The strap has built-in sensors to pick up electrocardiogram signals and transmits them to a wrist unit. The wrist unit will display the heart rate reading.

For most strapless heart rate monitor, you just have to place two fingers on the sensor poles of the watch whenever you want to know your heart rate. The heart rate reading will be displayed after you touch the sensor for a few seconds. However, with these units you cannot have a continuous reading of your heart rate. Moreover the measurement is not as accurate as the conventional heart rate monitors.

Although strapless heart rate monitor does not has the uncomfortable feeling of wearing a strap on the chest, it is found to be unsuitable for most people who needs more accurate reading and continuously monitor their heart rate. It might be suitable for people who just want to check their heart rate occasionally. To get the heart rate reading on a strapless heart rate monitor while you are exercising, you will need to slow down or even stop altogether to have the reading. This usually caused the reading to be inaccurate.

So for people who really want to train and improve their fitness level, it is better to have a traditional heart rate monitor rather than a strapless heart rate monitor. A traditional heart rate monitor can provide accurate real time information for you to know how well you are doing in your work out. It will also help you to keep a consistent pace in training. Most of the traditional heart rate monitors have more advance features than strapless heart rate monitor.

In order to benefit from using a heart rate monitor, it is important to choose an appropriate unit with the right features for the type of sport or exercise that you are enjoying. Researching online may help you find the right one.

strapless heart rate monitor

Strapless Heart Rate Monitor

If you still prefer a strapless heart rate monitor, you may want to take a look at the Impact Sports ePulse strapless heart rate monitor (picture left) at  Amazon.com.

  • ePulse is the world’s first armband-only continuous heart rate monitor and calorimeter.
  • ePulse is worn around  the forearm and can provide continuous heart rate monitoring.
  • Shows current heart rate, maximum and minimum heart rates, and average heart rate
  • Calculates calories burned based on personal profile and heart rate
  • Includes fat burning and cardio target zones; powered by AAA batteries

The ePulse works by integrating light sensor and microchip technology–the same type used in hospital heart rate monitors–to accurately read the pulse from the forearm.

In addition, the ePulse handles a number of basic calculations, including elapsed exercise time, average heart rate, and minimum and maximum heart rates. People with specific training goals can further use the ePulse to calculate optimal heart rate exercise zones for both burning fat and boosting cardio conditioning. The ePulse will then provide a target high and low range for your heart rate, with a green LED light telling you when you’re in the target zone.

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Train More Effectively with a Heart Rate Monitor

The invention of the heart rate monitor has come as a god send for those cannot afford a personal coach. Professional sport persons always have the luxury of a paid for personal coach to help them out in training. For armatures, an expensive personal coach is out of reach. Today’s heart rate monitor has made it convenient for athletes of all levels to plan their training without paying for a high priced trainer. It’s second best to having a personal coach.

With the help of a heart rate monitor:

  • You can plan your training accordingly.
  • You can know hard you need to train.
  • You can know how long you need to train.
  • You can know how much effort to put in to achieve you training goal.
  • You can know when to start and when to stop.
  • You can analyze your performance and progress with the data recorded.
  • You can train more effectively with the analysis.

Training more effectively with the help of a heart rate monitor will eventually produce better result for whichever sport you are training on. But, first of all, you must get a heart rate monitor that is suitable for the kind of sport you are pursuing. There are various brand and models with different features for different sports. Read this post to learn more.

One important thing you need to know when using a heart rate monitor is your maximum heart rate. Maximum heart rate (HRmax) is the highest number of beats per minute you can achieve (withstand) when you are going all out. One easy way to get your HR(max) is subtracting your age from the number 220. This is just a rough estimate, it varies depending on individual’s fitness level and health condition.

After getting your maximum heart rate, you will need to train within your heart rate target zone. Your heart rate target zone is in the range of 60 to 80 per cent of your maximum heart rate. With the help of a heart rate monitor, you will be able to train more effectively by staying within your target zone with the continuous monitoring of your heart rate. With regular training and improvement on fitness level, eventually your maximum heart rate and heart rate target zone will increase.

To get result, regular training and increasing the intensity of training gradually is important. Don’t ever over-trained and hurt yourself. Overly aggressive training may cause unfounded injuries that may have long term side effects in the future.

With a heart rate monitor, you should be able to take total control of your training. By following strictly to a plan based on data recorded during your work outs, you will reap the benefits one day.

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Timex Heart Rate Monitor

Timex heart rate monitor started it’s debut in 1986 with the introduction of its “Ironman Triathlon®” which went on to become America’s best selling watches within a year. Timex was established back in 1580 with the company name Waterbury Clock making shelf and mantel clocks developed in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley, known during the nineteenth century as the “Switzerland of America.”

The success of the “Ironman Triathlon®” has led Timex to diversify into a full-line of sport watches for men and women. From then on, investment in developments and innovations have made Timex heart rate monitor one of the leading products in the market.

Timex Ironman Men’s Road Trainer Heart Rate Monitor Watch

Heart Rate Monitor

Timex Ironman Men's Road Trainer

  • Mid-sized fitness training watch with heart rate monitor and comprehensive training tools
    • Digital transmission prevents cross-talk with other monitors and electronic equipment
    • Preset a target heart rate zone with six ranges; analyze time in/out of zone, recovery time, peak heart rate, and average heart rate
    • 100-hour chronograph with lap and split; 50-lap memory; 100-hour, 2-mode countdown timer; alarm with 5-minute backup
    • INDIGLO night-light with NIGHT-MODE; owner-replaceable battery; Data Recorder 2 and Data Recorder compatible; water resistant to 100 meters

Most heart rate monitors use what is called an analog signal. While these are usually quite accurate, Timex has developed a more accurate technology. This technology, the FM technology, is more accurate than the analog signals and will give you an accurate reading of your heart rate that may only be off by two or three beats a minute. This new technology is digital, and since it is digital you do not have to worry about crosstalk or getting interference from those around you who are also using heart rate monitors. You can be sure that the readings you get with this monitor are always accurate and you can rely on this information.

Some of these heart rate monitors made by Timex also have other great features as well. Some of them have special sensors that will keep track of the distance, as well as your speed. These Timex monitors actually use a special GPS system to calculate the time and the distance you have done.

All  these features set Timex apart from other makers of heart rate monitor. They are a step above the rest of the competitions. If you looking for accuracy, advance features and affordable prices, Timex is what you are looking for.

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