Heart rate monitors (HRM) and triathlon training

I suppose you have all heard of heart rate monitors. This will be a series of posts about this subject. The discussion will be about:

what HRMs are really good for triathlon race/training?

why do you want to use a HRM anyway?

what do the HRM really do?

benefits of training with a HRM

what’s not good with the HRMs

other methods

In this first post I will show some heart rate monitors that I find suitable for triathlon training. This will be only a small excerpt and there are a lot more HRMs on the market.

There are only a few big companies that produce heart rate monitors, the more known are:

Polar

Suunto

Garmin

Timex

Cardiosport

With the top models it’s possible to measure things like run and bike velocity and power used on the bike. It is also possible to use interval settings (time or distance) and they also come with a lot of test e.g. Polar has some Fitness-Tests, where you can measure your fitness level and thereby tracking your progress.

The simple models measure only time and heart rate.

Personally I found it very interesting and helpful to know at what velocity I am running. To be able to use the run velocity as intensity in the interval training session was also a big plus. Heart rate monitors that can do that are: