Saturday, November 7, 2009

Using Heart Rate Monitors Have Benefits

By Henry Calhoun

You can consider using heart rate monitors to lose weight, improve fitness and maximize your performance during your workout. This can especially important during cardio workouts because you usually burn calories more efficiently when you reach maximum heart rate range and are able to maintain it there for a certain amount of time.

When it comes to endurance sports, such as cycling and running, you have monitors that are able to keep track of several factors. Being able to measure the speed and difference, as well as account for elevation changes, provides valuable information about your heart rate and duration when participating in such sports. As an example, if you go half a mile uphill then you maximize your heart rate and therefore the workout will be more effective than if you go for a mile downhill or along level ground.

In a workout routine for endurance, the GPS monitors can help you get the workout you need, while accounting for a variety of factors. The same can be true of those that are skiers, mountain climbers or hikers. This type of workout has variables that can be accounted for on some of the more sophisticated heart monitors. Some manufacturers make special heart rate monitors for these types of sports that include pre-programmed exercise workout routines and they are easy to operate and use.

It is also possible to set up alerts on a unit so that you are warned if your heart rate goes up too high while exercising. People with heart conditions find this particularly useful, because they are restricted to mild workouts to facilitate their rehabilitation. Data collected by some units is useful for doctors caring for patients with heart problems and can therefore be downloaded and printed out in order to be presented. Depending upon the model and type of heart rate monitor you choose, you can have the records of your heart activity transferred and downloaded onto the computer.

When the goal of exercising is to lose weight, then the most calories are usually burned when the target heart rate is reached and kept up for a longer time period. Although interval training can be recommended by several programs to those wanting to lose weight quickly, when it comes to cardio workouts the most effective routine can be achieved if a heart monitor is used in order to keep track of the progress.

When you need a reliable method to track your pulse and analyze heart data, whether for health reasons or for effective exercise performance, heart rate monitors come in prices as cheap as $30 and go on up to a few hundred for the more complicated models that are capable of everything from GPS functions, running exercise programs for you to follow or downloading or uploading routines to and from the computer.

It is this variety of functions that have made these monitors popular for a variety of reasons. There are many brands to choose from and selecting the best heart rate monitors for your particular situation may give you plenty of options. If you are in endurance sports, you may want to consider those that factor in changes in elevation and vertical climbs. For those that are on heart health fitness routines, you may want multiple alarm systems, perhaps and the capability to download your heart rate results to your doctor. For weight loss, you may have exercise equipment that has a heart rate monitor built-in.

No matter what the reason is for using one, you still have to read through the features that a given device has in order to find the one most suitable for you. Since this technology is always advancing, you can be sure that your heart health is easier to closely monitor now than it was in the past.

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