Many people are doing aerobic exercise these days. The guidelines for making aerobic exercise as effective as possible recommend that the exerciser try to maintain a heart rate within a specific target zone. One way to do this is to use a heart rate monitor.

The aerobic metabolism consumes glycogen and oxygen. It is used to power exertion over a long period of time, regardless of the level of effort. Aerobic exercise increases the capabilities of the aerobic metabolism. The anaerobic metabolism just uses glycogen. It powers high levels of effort over fairly short periods of time.

One of the goals of aerobic exercise is to maintain a moderate to high level of exercise for a significant period of time. The level of exercise can be measured by the pulse or heart rate. This can be checked manually; some people find this effective. Doing the checking with a heart rate monitor tends to be more effective, and causes less distraction from the exercise.

Heart rate monitors calculate the pulse, or the rate at which the heart is beating. The ones most useful for general aerobic exercise are wearable and of course portable. Non-portable models are only useful in conjunction with fixed exercise equipment such as exercise bicycles or treadmills. Portable models can be used with virtually any kind of exercise. Some can even be worn while swimming.

Some monitors directly measure the electrical impulses generated during the beating of the heart. This is similar to the operation of an EKG machine, though much simpler. This type of monitor generally requires some kind of mounting on the chest. Chest straps and sports bras with embedded sensors are both commonly used.

EKG based monitors commonly have a wireless interface to a readout device that may be hand held or wrist mounted. The readout may be a watch, possibly with other sports and exercise functions. It may also display calculated data, perhaps calories used or maximum pulse rate. They display device could also be a cell phone or some custom display just for use with the monitor. The wireless interface may be something proprietary, but more and more of them are using the bluetooth protocol, which was originally developed for headsets, keyboards, and similar devices.

Another approach is to measure the throbbing throughout the body resulting from the heart beats. A sensor may fit onto a finger, or possibly an earlobe. The distance from the sensor to the display is short enough that a wireless interface is generally not implemented. Some monitors have the sensor as part of the display unit. This would probably require the user to press a finger or thumb against the sensor in the device to get a reading.

Some sports have special needs. Clearly swimmers need waterproof monitors. Where looking at a display might be too distracting, audible output could be used. This could be alarm tones indicating pulse out of range, or it could be a reading of the pulse rate itself.

It is possible to do aerobic exercise without a heart rate monitor, but there are advantages to using one. The primary advantage is that it can make the exercise more effective by making it easier for the user to determine if the level of effort is too high, too low, or about right. Also, many people just like having more feedback as to how they are doing.

Alan Walker is an experience personal trainer in a major health club chain. In his job he uses many best heart rate monitors to help his clients in fitness training. He owns a best heart rate monitor blog to recommends the best heart rate monitors in the market.

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Heart rate monitor has become popular among athletes and those who maintain lifestyle of working out at scheduled time. As the name implies, a heart rate monitor is a device used to monitor the heart rate of user at real time, some monitors are able to record the heart activity for future analysis.

There are a few types of heart rate monitor in market but the common types are heart rate monitor watches and strapless heart rate monitors. These two are more commonly used personally. As for coaches and professional athletes, wired digital heart rate monitor and wireless digital heart rate monitor are more commonly used.

Heart rate monitor watches consist of a chest strap that is tightly binds below the breast to detect the heart beat. Heart beat is then transmitted by the detector in chest strap to the lightweight receiver watch that comes in various designs that double as watches as it is built with digital clock. This heart rate monitor is suitable for those who would like to lose weight and increase cardio training to reach fitness goal.

Whilst the watches attracts with various design of watches, individual can still opt for a strapless heart rate monitor. This device is simpler in usage; one just need to place finger on the sensor after each workout session. Readings are available usually after finger is placed on sensor for about four to twelve seconds. This device is accurate as it runs on ECG platform.

As for the professional sports world, wired digital is a more common choice as the results and analysis are generated at real time. The cables are connected from the athlete's body to a computer, enabling coaches to analysis and construct a work out plan for athletes almost immediately. With wired system, interference is minimal thus providing the most accurate data for analysis.

A wireless digital heart rate monitor is more popular among coaches who need to watch over a few athletes simultaneously. With a wireless system, time taken for setup is minimized thus maximizing the time for working out. Wireless system also provides a less messy setup without cables scattered all over the place. This is crucial for gyms with small space.

When getting a heart rate monitor, first timers will face a hard time choosing one that will suit them perfectly. So how do we choose the perfect heart rate monitor? First feature that we should consider is the budget and the functions that you would like to have on the heart rate monitor. Functions that are nice-to-have like GPS or adjustable heart rate target zones with alarm will hike up the price slightly. For technophobes, it is better to choose one that has minimal buttons with simple display on the watch itself.

With various choice of heart rate monitors that comes with different designs, it is not hard to find one that suits your lifestyle. Just remember to keep the transmitter in contact with skin at all times to avoid wild readings that may blemish the analysis.

Alan Walker thinks that the best heart rate monitor is worth recommending to health conscious people. He writes about it in his best heart rate monitor review blog. There are heart rate monitor reviews and articles about heart rate monitors in his blog.

Posted under Watches