Heart Rate Watch - How's This One?

Been wanting one but don’t which to get. This I saw at walmart. $50

And just how is this relevant to the BB forum?

it is very hard to go wrong with the following products: Polar, Garmin and Timex. I would rather spend a little more for one I know will not crap out at the most inopportune time. Timex are solid and affordable. I had a Polar for 17 YEARS back when they where made in Finland and it NEVER failed in that time !

I have that same heart rate monitor. It works fairly decent. For the price it is good. Looking back though I wish I had one with the chest strap and some connectivity to endomondo which I use for running and biking. Also would work better punching a heavy bag.

Sometimes the walmart one does not get a good reading and you will have to push the button a few times to get on and by then your heart rate has came down, making it hard to determine just how high it really was.

Hmmm… will have to do more thinking on this. Polar are about twice as much but dirk said his lastsed 17 years. I don’t think anything in walmart ever lasts that long.

Remember I said my FIRST one which was made in FINLAND lasted 17 years. I have since had two in the last 10 years (china made). They may seem expensive but for the cycling and running/Xc skake skiing I do the polars are solid. The other company that the Mammoth Track Club uses are the Garmins which have both GPS and Heart Rate Monitor (HRT) ability. Remember it is better to Buy Nice than TWICE ; ). Hope that this helps you

I think I will go with polar. That walmat watch is ugly as hell too. Polars look alot nicer

Last piece of advice before I shut up. Polar et al make MANY different models of watch so look at what each has to offer in the way of functions then buy the one that best serves YOUR needs. Keep it simple.

One last piece of advice from 20 years of HRM use. Make sure to LICK or swab down the pick-ups on the strap with a SALTY mixture of liquid (saliva-salt water) so that you get the best possible connection to begin with.

Happy sweating…dirk.

[quote]killerDIRK wrote:

One last piece of advice from 20 years of HRM use. Make sure to LICK or swab down the pick-ups on the strap with a SALTY mixture of liquid (saliva-salt water) so that you get the best possible connection to begin with.[/quote]

Every time you use it? Or just like an initial calibration?

[quote]killerDIRK wrote:
Last piece of advice before I shut up. Polar et al make MANY different models of watch so look at what each has to offer in the way of functions then buy the one that best serves YOUR needs. Keep it simple.

One last piece of advice from 20 years of HRM use. Make sure to LICK or swab down the pick-ups on the strap with a SALTY mixture of liquid (saliva-salt water) so that you get the best possible connection to begin with.

Happy sweating…dirk.[/quote]

I noticed with my cheapy that it does work better once you have sweat for a bit. I even put some albolene on the thing to help with the connection. I should have posted here before I bought something

I bought one years ago but rarely used it. I mean the information it gave me never made me change the way I ran.

If I was running a half-Marathon I would go at my best speed for that distance and my heart rate wouldn’t factor into that.

I’ve done a 9K ( I don’t know why Nike starting making 9K runs, but they did) and I ran my best for that distance also.

That’s me though. If it’s not breaking your bank to get it then sure.

Happy Thanksgiving, yes it does help before you use the STRAP everytime to get it wet or lick it. It is YOUR saliva so that really should not gross you out to much, i hope.

Just remember that from my training perspective and those I work with one MAJOR thing we consistently see with people is that they go to Easy (<85%) on their hard day and tp hard (>65%) on their recovery days. This is where the HRM really comes in handy, if you are as anal about training properly as I am…

Happy Holiday Hunting !