3 Things To Think About Before Buying A Heart Rate Monitor
Having a heart rate monitor might give you dreams of being the next fitness superstar. Although it is a very useful device to boost your fitness levels and lose the pounds, do you know how to search for one or are you just splurging cash for the sake of getting it? Heart rate monitors can be very expensive or very affordable but it all depends on what features you want to have on them. An example of a pricey model would be one with GPS built-in, personalized workouts, downloadable date and fitness testing.
why buy a heart rate monitor??
There could be a lot more in the list but do you really need all those bells and whistles just to monitor your heart rate? Before you buy a heart rate monitor, here are 3 practical things to consider.
1. Size and Comfort
Some watches are too large on a woman’s hands but just nice on a man’s hands. Slim looking watches look best on the ladies. Bear in mind there are heart rate monitors for both men and ladies so consider the fitting, size and bulkiness before trying. The best thing to do is to try it on in a shop before buying one.
Another important consideration are the accessories that come with heart rate monitors. There are also chest straps that are designed to go around the chest while monitoring your heart rate. You need to ensure that the straps fit comfortably around the chest and are not too tight otherwise chaffing can occur. Most manufacturers design chest straps with the male body in mind so ladies might have to invest in a sports bra that also holds the chest strap with the heart monitor on. My personal opinion would not to go for a chest strap because of unnecessary expenses incurred just to monitor your heart rate. I would go for one that straps around my wrist and works perfectly without getting too complicated to handle.
2. Budget
Heart rate monitors vary in their prices as mentioned earlier. Prices range from $30 – $500 depending on the features you want. It all boils down to what you are looking for and how much you are willing to spend. Different price ranges gives you a different variety of features. The kind of heart rate monitor you want to buy depends mainly on your goals and needs.
People who are fitness junkies might demand more features like programmable workouts or downloadable data. These can fetch a price tag that starts from $100 and above. If you are just looking for something to track your heart rate and calories burned, then anything between $30-$100 would suffice. Of course the more feature packed a model is, the more expensive it will get.
3. Needs and Goals
Before buying one consider your goals and needs of buying one:
- Are you looking at a heart rate monitor to monitor your usual activities?
- Are you an athlete aiming to improve your fitness levels?
- Do you just want to lose weight by burning off calories?
- Do you want to look for a model to track and download fitness data, workout data and GPS features?
There may be other more pertinent questions to ask yourself but addressing these questions helps you narrow down available models to those that meets your needs and goals. An example of a great entry level model that fulfills basic needs for the average person aiming to stay fit is the Omron HR-100C heart rate monitor.
