Polar Heart Rate Monitors

Posts Tagged ‘Monitors’

• Polar Bike Mount Kit, so you can mount your monitor on your handle bars
• Works with all Polar Heart Rate monitor, except for models with Stainless Bands

Product Description
Polar Bike Mount Kit, so you can mount your monitor on your handle bars. Works with all Polar Heart Rate monitor, except for models with Stainless Bands.

Polar Bike Mount Kit for Heart Rate Monitors

Heart rate monitors are electronic equipments used to continually keep track of a person’s heart rates. These devices are sometimes called cardiac monitors. They are used to measure and record heart rates in real time. The very first models that appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s were initially as supporting instruments for the training of athletes. Electrodes were attached to the chest area and had transmitters that sent data to a receiver. Modern versions are still comprised of a transmitting strap fastened around the chest and then send heart rate information to a wrist-worn receiver.

Strapless variations of heart rate monitors are available. They are worn around one hand but are not as reliable and effective in getting accurate readings as compared to heart rate belts. Some strapless heart monitors require users to put two fingers on sensors on the receiver. Other models have mini straps that are fastened to a finger to get a reading. Heart rate monitors work by detecting a heart beat or a pulse of an individual. A signal is then sent or transmitted to the receiver which then measures and displays the heart rate of the user. This transmission can be through a simple radio wave or coded signals that are unique for every unit. Coding of signals prevents interference, called cross-talk, with similar heart rate transmitters. With this, anyone can have the ability to monitor his or her heart rate which is used as a basis for exercising or maintaining a healthy heart.

Heart rate monitors gained acceptance during the 1990s as people began to consider its effectiveness in measuring heart rates, particularly while training and working-out. Health product industries and manufacturers responded to this by incorporating heart rate monitoring systems into their machines for exercising, such as the treadmill, stationery bikes, and other trainers. Heart rate monitors have become essential tools for safe training and exercising. For athletes and health conscious people, it has become common to train with heart rate belts. The strapless models normally suffice for those who are just keeping a tad on their heart, especially individuals with a history of heart attacks and heart ailments.

An individual can better control his training intensity by using heart rate monitors. It is easier to accomplish training goals with them. If someone wishes to trim down and lose extra weight, he should train within a specified heart rate training zone for that end, which is fat metabolism which is at 60 – 70 per cent of the maximum heart rate. The length of the training when losing weight when using heart rate monitors should be about 60 minutes.

A very important aspect of training with heart rate monitors is an awareness of the heart rate training zones and its concepts. Training zones are stated as percentage of an individual’s maximum heart rate. These percentages of the training zones parallel the type of training desired and the target goals. However, these are made as simply recommendations and are not absolute. They may be uses as basis or starting points. At 50 – 60 per cent zone, the type training is burning fat and keeping fit. At the 60 – 70 per cent zone, the training is losing weight. At 70 – 80 per cent, training is for building aerobic endurance. At 80 – 90 per cent, it is for increasing the lactic ceiling of an individual. At 90 – 100 per cent, training is now to raise the maximum aerobic limits. Each training zone has different purposes.

Used to be heart rate monitors were the sole domain of those in health care. Doctors and nurses seemed to be the only ones interested in monitoring heart functions on a regular basis. This has changed as fitness enthusiasts discovered the connection between heart rate and fitness levels.

A heart monitor is basically an electronic device that can track heart functions as they are happening. The devices you find in hospitals and doctors offices are obviously the high end of heart monitoring technology. These high tech devices give physicians an instant feedback on any life threatening cardiac problems. On the lower end are the monitors that fitness buffs and athletes use. These smaller units allow them to place a numerical value on their fitness level based on their heart rate before, during, and after exercise.

For those who are interested in using a heart rate monitoring device for fitness purposes there are several things to keep in mind when choosing which type will work best for you.

The most accurate monitors use a chest strap to detect and transmit heart activity. The strap is strapped around the chest just below the breast bone. It works by detecting the electrical impulses of the heart which are transmitted to the receiver where it is displayed.

The receiver is normally worn on the wrist and functions much like a watch. In fact many high end heart rate monitors are also multi-functional sport watches. Cardio specific exercise equipment such as treadmills, stair-steppers, and exercise bikes will also include heart rate monitoring technology with the receiver and display built into the control console.

Heart rate monitors also have different features that can help meet your fitness goals. Of course the amount and type of features are dependent on how much you are willing to spend. Low end base models will normally only display heart rate and in some cases elapsed time you have exercised.

Higher end models offer a wider range of features, for a higher price of course. You will find things such as heart rate zone alarms, timers, and number of calories burned. Many are also programmable to the point that you can pre-program workouts and targeted heart rates.

All these bells and whistles are useless if the heart monitor you choose is less then easy to use. It?s a good idea to read reviews of various brands and models to see what actual users have to say about ease of use. Is it easy to read the display? What about low light or no light situations? Are the buttons easily accessible and labeled in a way that makes sense?

For the fitness enthusiast a heart rate monitor can be the last piece of the fitness puzzle. It can help break through those fitness plateaus by allowing you to customize your workouts to meet specific goals and a faster rate.

Personal heart rate monitors are all over the place now. I’m sure that you’ve seen them. All of the contestants on the weight loss reality show, The Biggest Loser wear them. Heart rate monitors can have a huge impact on your fitness and health.

Most treadmills, ellipticals and exercise bikes come equipped with some type of heart rate monitoring system. The “norm” is a system whereby you grasp the balance bar, or pulse grips which allows your heart rate to be calculated and monitored. I call this a passive system as there are systems that, once you have entered all your personal data such as weight, height, percentage of body fat, etc. will actually increase or decrease your workout (automatically) exertion level based on your heart rate. The machine actually does your calculating for you!

But a personal heart rate monitor isn’t quite that sophisticated. The components of a personal system consist of a tank top or bra with wires interwoven through the fabric. There is an a snap attachment for inserting the transmitter and then a monitor, usually in the form of a watch, to pick up the signal. The system is great because it gives you a real time heart rate with which to adjust your exercise level.

It’s known that you need to achieve and maintain your target heart rate for 20-25-30 minutes for maximum effectiveness. Too much or too little and you lose that effectiveness. A Target Heart Rate is actually a “zone”. In other words, based on your age, current level of conditioning and personal fitness goals. The American Heart Association recommends working out at a Target Heart Rate Zone of between 60% and 75% of your maximum heart rate. A beginner will want to workout in the 60% range while a more experienced exerciser will want to workout in the 70-75% range.

To calculate your target heart rate you can find many calculators on the internet to do it for you. I found an excellent one at healthchecksystems.com – be sure to find one that allows for your resting heart rate as well as age as they are more accurate and reliable.

In a way, personal heart rate monitors become your personal trainer. By monitoring your heart rate and adjusting your workout level accordingly, you are much more likely to stay within your desired zone, and avoid over or under exercising. Doing so will take your exercise sessions to the next level where you can work out smarter!

Raising your heart rate safely is one of the main benefits of using a wireless heart rate monitor. Believe it or not, over exercising your heart IS possible. Through exercise, you need to achieve your target heart rate – and keep it there for 20-25 minutes minimally.

Everyone should be exercising at their optimal or target heart rate in order to gain the most benefit from their exercise plan. However, there are many cases where you can do significant damage if you exercise beyond where your target heart rate should be.

Too much exercise can actually slow down your metabolism, just like when your not eating enough. For men and women, the combination of over-exercising AND dieting can lead to depressed thyroid activity, disturbed sleep patterns, loss of ability to concentrate, depression, irritability and a depressed immune system. If you don’t have enough energy intake and, at the same time have excessive energy output, you may start to burn healthy lean muscle mass tissue for energy. Your ability to maintain intense physical activity therefore decreases, rather than improves.

Its a fine line that can be easily monitored and maintained with a good wireless heart rate monitor. The system usually consists of a tank shirt or a bra with soft wires woven throughout the fabric. A transmitter is attached to electrodes in an area that will be free of chaffing or constriction. The transmitter then sends your heart rate to a monitor – most often in the form of a watch. A good system will, besides tell you what time it is and your heart rate, give you information such as calories burned and the durations of your exercise. Many transmitters are also compatible with many analog heart rate monitoring systems – like those included on recumbent exercise bikes, treadmills and ellipticals.

Using a wireless heart rate monitor, you can check your heart rate as you steadily increase the intensity of your exercise during the warm up period until you attain your target heart rate. (Based on age, sex, weight) You can then monitor to make sure that you are maintaining your target heart rate for the required 20-25 minutes, and then gradually lessen your intensity for your cool down.

Not only does the heart rate monitor, enable you to achieve your target heart rate more accurately, but it also reminds you and guides you through the VERY important, but often ignored warm up and cool down periods.

Do you want to make it big in athletics? Then I need not stress the importance of physical fitness. Competitive runners and athletes have to put in a lot of effort to increase their fitness and stamina.

Fitness of the heart is important not just for runners but for everyone. As an aspiring runner, you should always remember that cardiovascular fitness is crucial as it increases your aerobic endurance. Aerobic endurance, also called as cardiovascular respiratory endurance, is the capacity to withstand fatigue and continue prolonged physical activities, like running, cycling, and swimming. You need to measure your heart rate to know how much progress have you made in this aspect. There are several heart rate monitors available in the markets for this purpose.

These personal monitoring devices will help you to measure your heart rate, give instant feedback, and record it for later reference. With the help of heart rate monitors, you will find it easy to record heart rate even during strenuous exercise and workouts. Heart rate monitors usually consist of a chest strap transmitter and a wrist receiver. These wrist receivers also double as trendy-looking watches.

Latest models of heart rate monitors do not have plastic straps. Instead, they use fabric sensors that are so comfortable. Smart fabric technology can eliminate the use of elastic straps that hold the transmitter with embedded electrodes close to your chest. This ensures that you feel comfortable through long hours of workout.

A few brands offer runner bodylink system heart rate monitors that can calculate your pace and speed. Additionally these devices are also GPS-enabled to give information, like distance, location, and altitude, which is an advantage for runners like you.

Heart Rate monitors are devices that allow the user to gain a real time measurement of their heart beat. They consist of a transmitter in the form of a chest strap and a receiver, usually worn on the wrist and doubling as a watch.

The chest strap transmitter measures the number of times the users heart beats per minutes by monitoring voltages across the heart through electrodes which are in contact with the skin. As a heart beat is detected the transmitter sends a radio signal to the receiver which is used to determine the rate at which the heart beats. In higher end models this signal is coded in order to prevent “Cross Talk” between nearby monitors.

The first wireless EKG Heart rate monitor was invented in 1977 by Polar Electro. It was invented as a training aid for the Finnish National Cross Country Ski team. The concept of ‘intensity training’ infiltrated through the athletic world in the eighties and in 1983 the first wireless heart monitor was introduced. The portable Polar PE 2000 consisted of a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter was attached to the chest by either disposable electrodes or an elastic electrode belt, whilst the receiver was a monitor worn as a watch on the wrist. By the 1990s individuals were not only looking at heart rate monitors for performance training needs, but also for their individual everyday fitness requirements.

The wireless Polar heart rate monitoring method was developed at the University of Oulu’s department of electronics, and was originally aimed at coaches and sportsmen to help raise the quality and efficiency of their training. Exercise scientists also used them in their work after researching them.

The selection of monitors available today includes easy-to-use products for everyone with a keen interest in their physical health. There are also a wide number of receiver designs that have many different advanced features. These include, average heart rate over exercise period, time in a specific heart rate zone, calories burned during exercise period, along with detailed logging that can be downloaded to a computer.

In December 2005, Textronics Inc. introduced the first garment with integrated heart sensors in the form of a sports bra. Special materials in the sports bra sense the number of beats of the heart from the body and transmit it to a wrist receiver. The garment provides a comfortable alternative to the chest strap.

Modern receiver designs are wide ranging and can perform many advanced functions including average rate, calories burned & stride length. The data can then be logged by downloading it onto a computer.

Having been through the experience of giving birth three times I had hardened myself to the fact that I couldn’t be fazed by any blood and guts.

That was until I had the opportunity to be at the business end of childbirth and see it in all its gut wrenching glory. Don’t get me wrong, I would not have missed the birth of my grandson for anything in the world. However, I certainly was not prepared for the fear I felt on behalf of my daughter for the health of her son.

Nowhere else in the world will you see a bunch of women battle with all their strength for anything so fiercely. And they say that women are the weaker sex! I watched my daughter muster every ounce of physical and emotional strength she had ever had to find. I watched the midwives shed sweat and tears in my grandson’s perilous entry into the world. All that and I still managed to hang on to my breakfast.

Two weeks overdue my daughter arrived at the hospital in the early stages of labour and had all the run of the mill tests to check her and her son’s health. She was strapped up to machines and having blood taken at various intervals. The heart monitor rate was telling us all was ok and we settled in for a bit of a wait.

She didn’t cope with the pain very well. At this point, for the benefit of male readers, I will tell you that when you can squeeze a melon through your nether regions, then you may have an opinion on the pain of child birth, until that point assume it is your worst level of pain imaginable and then magnify it by one hundred.

Ten hours in and the young woman who insisted no medicinal intervention is begging for drugs. After three pethidine jabs we were able to relax into the funny phase. For those who haven’t been there, this is the time when you find humour in everything. Strapped to monitors, she starts to laugh at the shape of the bottle of hand wash fixed to the wall on the other side of the room and can focus on nothing else.

The more she laughs at the bottle, the more I laugh at her. The door bursts open and in flies a midwife with panic on her face. The heart monitor rates given off by my daughter have gone through the roof and they think she is ill. Relieved, they give her a light hearted telling off for frightening them.

Another twelve hours go by and she is still seriously struggling, with some way to go only now things have taken a somewhat sinister turn. Tests have been done on her and the baby and the heart monitor rate has gone from the expected 150 beats per minute to an unhealthy196 beats per minute.

If labour is prolonged and the baby becomes distressed, then he’s heart rate will drop. They do not know why his heartbeat is rising so rapidly but the heart monitor rates just keep climbing. Despite being packed to the rafters with mothers in the full throes of labour, they put my daughter to the top of the list for a caesarean section. This baby has to come out quickly and she is not dilating.

The surgeons are held up with another operation and my daughters fear is increasing in line with the heart monitor rate telling us of her baby’s progress. As I dress in the scrubs they have given me, the seriousness of the situation hits home for us all.

Ready for the operation, the midwife carries out some last minute checks before taking her to the operating theatre. They find she has suddenly dilated and it is too late for the operation. She will have to push. With no other way out, they turn off the sound from the machines so as not to frighten her with the heart monitor rates and she uses all her concentration to focus on the job in hand.

In a very short space of time, my grandson is delivered and within minutes his heart monitor rates tell us all is back as it should be. A paediatrician is on hand to give him a thorough check and these tests are done again the following day before he is sent home being declared fit and well.

Back in the days before heart rate monitors, many babies died this way but thank heavens for modern science and medicine.

It was only a matter of time before the sports bra found another function. The sports bra has been quietly waiting for a high tech upgrade. Sure the sports bra has seen design improvements and has been made out of numerous materials over the years but recently the sports bra has been injected with some high tech gadgetry that allows a women to monitor her heart with out having to use the typical strap that can be especially annoying and uncomfortable for women. For those women who are running hours at a time. One of the biggest complaints of the heart rate monitors is that the strap is uncomfortable and can leave marks from excessive running. It appears that the sports bra has solved this solution. It may be so much more comfortable that men may want to start wearing sports bras.

A company has found a way to put the electronics into the fabric of the bra. The company is NuMetrex, which specializes in integrating electronics into spandex fabrics. The company designed the bra to work with Polar WearLink system the goes into a special pouch in the bra. There is no need for the standard strap that users are accustomed to wearing. It seems that this should give women an edge up on the men for comfort when it comes to wearing a heart rate monitor. Women who tested this bra seemed to find the bra very comfortable especially when compared to the past style of having to wear a strap around the chest. The one down side seems to be cost. The bra can add up to $100 dollars to the cost of heart rate monitor system.

The sports bra heart rate monitor system is really pretty simple idea, it’s surprising that something like this has not appeared before. There are sensors in the bra that detect the women’s heartbeat and then instantly relay it to the link transmitter in the front of the bra. The information then is simultaneously beamed to the heart rate monitor watch where the athlete can get real time stats on their heart rate and other critical information to their workout. Many times this data can be transferred to the computer where you can track your progress. These Heart rate monitor watches also can link up with gym equipment with treadmills and other equipment build for heart monitor linking. Right now the bra is limited to certain heart rate monitor watches. It’s only a matter of time before the bra is compatible with more brands and models.

I highly recommend using a heart rate monitor. Learning to run at correct efforts is very important for workout recovery and fast race times.

One disadvantage of a heart rate monitor is trying to get to the desired heart rate too fast. Learning to use perceived effort in addition to the heart rate monitor will improve you times quite a bit.

I have learned through trial and error what heart rates to use for each race distance. A good rule of thumb is to learn what the corresponding pace feels like and then find out the heart rate associated with this pace.

I try to start each race on the lower range of my desired heart rate and then as I reach mid point in the race I will pick up the pace to the higher end of my heart rate range. I save my all out effort for the last mile of a race.

Heart Rate Ranges for Selected Race Distances

5k Races
90% of maximum heart rate for the 1st mile
95% of maximum heart rate for the 2nd mile
95-98% of maximum heart rate for 3rd mile
100% effort for sprint to finish

10k Races
85% of maximum heart rate for the 1st mile
85-90% of maximum heart rate for 2nd-4th mile
90-95% of maximum heart rate for 5th mile
95-98% of maximum heart rate for 6th mile
100% sprint to finish