You’ve probably had workouts where you felt that something was missing. Maybe you could have pushed yourself a little harder, gone around the track for an extra lap or mustered a little more strength for that last set. This is where heart rate monitors come in. Maybe you’ve heard of heart rate monitors and how athletes are using them to enhance their fitness and performance, but how exactly does a heart rate monitor work?

What is a Heart Rate Monitor?

A heart rate monitor senses the beats of your heart and displays that information onto your watch in real time. Heart rate monitors can either be a simple watch type or a chest strap. Through this, athletes and runners can adjust the intensity of their workout by either slowing down or speeding up as needed, to stay in the recommended heart rate zone. Your heart rate is also a measure of your overall fitness. Two runners can be on the same heart rate zone, yet one is barely walking and the other is already exhausted from the exercise. As your heart strengthens and your fitness improves, you will be able to tackle the same obstacles at a lower heart rate.

Benefits of a Heart Rate Monitor:

• Informs you of the intensity of your training
• Keeps you within your optimum heart rate zone
• Prevents overtraining
• Tracks your progress and saves this data to be transferred to your computer

Features of a Heart Rate Monitor

Heart rate monitors today come with a great variety of features starting from basic heart rate monitoring to high tech personalized training according to your fitness level and competing with other users via the internet. At the most basic level, all heart rate monitors display your heart rate and exercise time. Going for more expensive products will get you features such as heart zone alarm, interval timers, calorie expenditure calculations, fitness tests, programmed workouts and computer uploads.

Polar and Suunto are two of the most respected companies in the heart rate monitor industry today. Check out the reviews on this page for more information on what they have to offer.

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