Top 5 Heart Rate Monitors for Exercise

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Updated on July 17, 2019

If you're trying to get in shape and lose weight, a heart rate monitor (HRM) is an excellent way to monitor your intensity and see how many calories you're burning. The following list offers a variety of choices, for either the exerciser who wants something simple or the multi-sport athlete who wants all the bells and whistles. The world of heart rate monitoring has been evolving swiftly. Now, it is common to find wrist-based heart rate on fitness trackers. But using a chest strap is still best for accuracy.

Polar M200 and H10 Bluetooth Heart Rate Sensor

Polar M200 GPS Running Watch — Photo from Amazon

Polar is the company that popularized heart rate monitors for sports training. These have evolved and now they have many features to enhance your workouts. The M200 is designed specifically with runners in mind. You have a choice of using its wrist-based heart rate sensor or adding their H10 Bluetooth heart rate sensor chest strap. The chest strap should give you are more accurate heart rate.

The M200 tracks heart rate and workout intensity to calculate calories burned and time spent in each zone. In addition, the M200 has built-in GPS so you get real-time speed and distance for outdoor workouts. It has automatic or manual lap counting. It has 24/7 activity monitoring if you want to wear it all day and night.

The Polar Flow app and website provide lots of data and coaching to help you in making the most of your workouts.

Wahoo TICKR

If you want the most accurate heart rate, a chest strap is still the best technology. This chest strap will connect to your smartphone apps, GPS watch, treadmill, fitness band, heart rate monitor display, Apple Watch, and more. It's compatible with many fitness apps such as Nike+ Running, MapMyFitness, Runkeepr, Strava, and Apple Health, allowing you to decide which you want to use.

This strap has the advantage of being compatible with either Bluetooth or ANT+ connections as may be found with older devices. It has a replaceable battery.

The Polar H10 is another choice for a Bluetooth heart rate monitor strap that will connect with many fitness devices and apps.

Garmin vivosport

You can monitor your heart rate from a chest strap with Garmin's activity monitors, including the vivofit and vivosmart. You can track your diet by the connection with the MyFitnessPal app. The vivosport adds wrist-based heart rate detection and GPS. It has all-day activity tracking so you won't be slacking between workouts and sleep tracking to ensure you are getting high-quality sleep.

Garmin Forerunner 735XT

If you're a multi-sport athlete, you may want a more serious heart rate monitor like the Garmin Forerunner 735XT. You get wrist-based heart rate and compatibility with a heart rate monitor strap. It has GPS tracking and the ability to create your own workouts as well as analyze everything from your pace and distance to calories burned. Advanced features include VO2 max estimate, lactate threshold, race predictor, and recovery advisor.

You can manage and view your workouts with Garmin Connect and also use a Strava membership for many features for cyclists.

Polar M600

This waterproof Polar smartwatch has wrist-based heart rate sensors and will connect to Polar's Bluetooth chest strap. It has built-in GPS and swim metrics. The color touchscreen keeps you updated with all of your exercise data. You can add music to the M600 and go completely phoneless while you train.