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The Omron HR-100C is the best budget heart rate monitor on the market. In this review I tell you why and discuss the pros and cons of this training tool.

I’m not a big distance guy; I mainly run 5K and 10K races. But I’m very competitive and always on the lookout for ways to try and improve my time. I had read that cardiac tempo calculators were one of the best training tools you could use in terms of boosting your performance. I really like the science behind the whole thing. You can track your heart rate and run within zones with each zone getting a certain amount of training time each week.

When I first started looking at cardio speed watches most of the prices were well over $100 with most in the $300 range. The Omron is under $50. Since I had never used a monitor before I really just wanted the basics so that I could try it out and see if I like it. Here’s what I found out about the Omron HR-100C.

The most outstanding affordable heart velocity recorder on the market right now is the Omron HR-100C. You won’t get a lot of fancy software or tracking reports, just the meat and potatoes basics. The two main things to look for in an inexpensive monitor is that it’s accurate and that won’t break after just a short time. I found that the HR-100C easily meets those criteria.

How Accurate is the Omron HR-100C?

The testing labs at Consumer Reports showed the Omron HR-100C to be highly accurate when compared to an actual EKG (electrocardiograph), which is a device used by hospitals to measure patients’ heart rates. Several other sources that conducted similar tests also reported highly accurate data coming out of the HR-100C. So you’re getting a good device here.

How Do You Train With The HR-100C?

The Omron HR-100C bases its training levels on percentages of your maximum pulse rate. Omron recommends using the basic age formula to calculate your maximum heart rate where men subtract their age from 220 and women 230 to get the max heart rate number. There are better ways to do this as I discuss on this site. The good thing though is the Omron monitor gives you the chance to input your own pulse rate max and you can use any calculation method you’d like.

You set up one training zone based on your goals for each workout session. If you want to train in a different zone the next time you’ll need to readjust the settings. Omron recommends three different training zones to improve your fitness levels.

The Weight Management Zone is the lowest training intensity level at 60%-70% of your max heart rate. This zone is good is you’re just starting out and for recovery type workouts.

The Aerobic zone is 70-80% of your max cardio rate and is designed to increase strength and endurance. You burn a lot of calories in this zone.

The third zone is the Anaerobic Threshold zone at 80-90% of cardio rate max. You work in this zone to build speed and power.

To see how you would program the HR-100C, take a look at this example. If your goal is weight loss and you’re a 40 year old man, you would calculate a lower pulse rate limit of 108 (220-40 x 60% = 108) and an upper limit of 126 (220-40 x 70% = 126). Then you would simply input these numbers into the monitor.

The nice thing about the Omron HR-100C is that you have total flexibility on programming. You can do your own pulse rate max calculation and training zone percentages and input that information into the wrist monitor. It’s very easy and the instruction manual walks you through it step by step.

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