Wearing a chest strap heart rate monitor.
Heart rate monitors can gauge how hard your heart is working during exercise. People should use heart rate monitors for the following reasons: athletic training, weight loss and exercise safety.
Types
There are three different types of heart rate monitors; chest straps, wristbands and upper armbands. Each of these types of heart rate monitors is worn near a pulse point to detect the heart beat.
Features
Some heart rate monitors will only keep track of and report how many beats per minute your heart is working or give a percentage that tells how close your heart is working to its maximum. Other monitors will tell you how many calories you have burned during an exercise session. Some monitors will allow you to log in your hours of exercise and all of the food you have eaten and calculate your caloric deficit for the day to help you lose weight.
Function
It is important to understand what the numbers mean to utilize your heart rate monitor. The simplified formula to calculate your maximum heart rate is 220-minus your age, but most heart rate monitors will ask other questions about your fitness level to make the number more personal. For example if you are 40 years old, your maximum heart rate would be 180 using the simplified formula. While working out, the monitor will tell you (in percent form) how close you are to your maximum heart rate.
Training
Heart rate monitors can help you train.
Athletes use heart rate monitors to monitor their training progress and to race at the fastest pace possible for themselves. For example, a runner will probably train at 75 percent of his maximum heart rate. He may run at 90 percent for a race pace training run and 95 to 100 perdent in his speed training runs. During a race, an athlete can look at his heart monitor and see if he is working at 92 to 97 percent of his maximum heart rate.
Benefits
A heart rate monitor can help you to stay within a safe target of your maximum heart capacity during your workouts. You can slow down and lower your heart rate if you need to. The monitor will also tell you if you are able to work harder because you are not near the percent of heart rate needed, then you can push your self a bit and raise your heart rate.
Tags: heart rate, heart rate, rate monitors, maximum heart, your heart, maximum heart rate