Many novice and intermediate trainers regard heart rate monitors as pieces of equipment for serious athletes and don't understand how they can of any use to them.
However, not only are heart rate monitors excellent devices for helping to ensure that you work sufficiently hard to get the best possible value out of your training time, they can also help to ensure that you don't work too hard - a point that is as important for beginners and intermediate athletes as it is for the more committed and experienced.
During fitness training sessions, many beginners (and many people who have been training for a long time!) tend to push themselves way too hard.
Lacking the experience to be able to judge the intensity required to achieve the desired training effect and the actual intensity of the effort that they are putting in, they will often push themselves much harder than is necessary.
This usually leads to disillusionment - it's no fun "thrashing" yourself during every session (well, not for everyone, anyway!).
Worse still, consistently working too hard can quickly lead to over-training and illness or injury.
This is where a heart rate monitor can be so useful.
By allowing an accurate assessment of intensity, the monitor enables you to better control the training effort.
Result?More enjoyable training sessions that can be tailored to exactly meet the required training effect - whether that is to shave seconds off your "10K PB", or to shave inches off your waist!.
There is such a large range of heart rate monitors on the market nowadays, that the choice can be overwhelming.
My own experience only extends to those monitors produced by Polar.
There are definitely cheaper monitors available, and there may well be better value monitors out there, but there are probably none that are more accurate or better suited to the complete range of fitness trainers and athletes.
(This isn't a plug for Polar.
Please let me know if there are any other makes/models that you have found to be particularly good and I will list them on my site.
) Serious heart rate monitors designed for sports use all consist of a chest-strap transmitter and a watch-type receiver.
Whilst a device that does little more than display your current heart rate can be useful, it may well be a false economy to enter the market at such a low level, as you are likely to quickly recognise the value of some more advanced features and want to upgrade.
Points that I consider important when choosing a heart rate monitor are: The transmitter and receiver should be coded.
This will prevent transmissions from other users and from external sources, such as high-voltage electricity wires and mobile telephones, from interfering with the readings.
The monitor should allow you to record laps.
This will allow you to record an entire session, then review the session and note the readings from the sections that really count.
The monitor should display your average heart rate for every lap and (at least) the maximum heart rate achieved during the entire session.
If you intend to use gym CV equipment with a built-in heart rate display, you should get a model of heart rate monitor with a transmitter that allows your readings to be sent directly to that display, as well as to your watch/receiver.
The recording of calorie consumption is unlikely to be particularly accurate, but it should be more useful than the estimates given by gym machines or the various tables of activities that are available.
Therefore, this can be a very useful feature if weight loss is a concern.
Heart rate monitors are not just for the elite athlete; they can be a very useful training aid for everyone, whatever your standard.
Getting the most from training with a heart rate monitor will be the subject of future articles.