theres a polar or polaris one in tesco for about 40 quid. are the cheap ones any good and how does a hrm improve your fitness?
P.S. im no lance armstrong so i dont really need top end technology to help me shave 100ths of a second of my ride times!! 😆

lidl do one now and again for £12. it works.

I have a cheap one, it tells me what my Heart Rate is.

I use this to work out zones and then it allows me to measure this

when you say zones do you mean a kind of "average" heart rate you reach and then try to remain or sustain whilst exercising?

i got mine from tesco for 10£ if i remember correctly. still going strong.

The cheap ones do OK
In terms of improving your fitness only exercise will do that. But it does help to ensure that you are working in the correct HR zone to improve endurance, recovery, power etc and therefore maximising the impact of the training you do.
They can also help in races to ensure you keep effort at a point that is sustainable

Useful if you want to introduce some structure into your training. It's about training to a level of effort rather than simply time or distance.

As good for making you go slow on recovery days as it is for working hard on 'hard' days.

You need to work out your own resting and max HR so you can train at specific levels of effort.

My advice would be to read up on it and keep things simple.

They do seem to work ok, however when I calculated my max HR in a stress test with my old decathlon one I got my HR up to 204. Since getting a garmin one I've never managed to get it about 190. I suspect this is due to the old one being shite!

i have a tesco one i bought as a stop gap ….

having used several quality items from polar , sigma and cateye (not quite as good) the tesco one doesnt give a very accurate reading – reads low as **** … about 10 -15 bpm lower.

but like scales – long as your referance point is worked out using the same instrument then its still a good tool !

I know if my heart rate goes above 160 then I'm going into anaerobic zone and if I'm over 160 for too long I'll knacker out quickly.

If I'm wanting to push myself to train then 1 min at 175-180 and then recover for 1 minute and repeat.

sorry for the thread hijack, odannyboy, i saw your miami ink thread and wondered if you found an artist? i would recommend a guy called Steve Prizeman, he's into bikes too.