As my wife, Jan, and progressed further along in our Beachbody fitness journey, we thought it would be a good idea to get a heart rate monitor to see how hard our hearts were working, and - hopefully! - how well we were recovering.

We went out and bought a heart rate monitor at a local sporting good store. It wasn’t fancy (but wasn’t cheap, either), but was one of the kinds that you have to hold your finger down against one of the buttons for it to measure your heart rate. That was really inconvenient in the middle of our P90 Sweat workouts, and to top things off the silly thing stopped working about two weeks after we got it.

Our Beachbody coach, Doris, had just bought a Garmin Forerunner 405 and was telling folks in her club about it, and it sounded really good. I thought at first it was probably over the top for our needs, but since we had done a bit of running (and planned to do more), having something that could not only monitor our heart rate, but could also keep track of our distance and speed, was an appealing idea. I did some additional research, and finally we decided to order one.

I have to say, the Forerunner 405 is pretty darn slick. It does a really good job of monitoring our heart rates, and measures not only the current rate, but keeps tracks of the maximum and average rates, can be programmed for up to five zones (if you happen to use that), and can even display a graph of your heart rate on the watch display. The downside is that you have to wear a heart monitor strap; that’s not a big deal, but you have to make sure to moisten the contact points so it gets good conductivity against your skin, and make sure that it’s tight enough (but not too tight).

The Forerunner 405 also has a built-in GPS to keep track of your running or bicycling. From what I’ve been able to tell, it seems to be quite accurate, although mine takes a while (maybe a minute or so) to lock up enough satellites. It’s not a big deal, just a minor inconvenience when you’re ready to start running!

The 405 has a ton of other features that I’m not going to try and cover here, except for a couple of my favorites. One is the pace keeper: you can set your pace in minutes per mile, and it shows you a little graphic of how far ahead or behind you are from your target pace. So you can see at a glance while you’re running how far off your pace you are (which, being a slooow runner, is usually quite a bit for me!) without having to even read the numbers.

Garmin Connect MapThe other feature is the Garmin Connect site and their Training Center software. The Mac version of the Training Center software doesn’t seem to work with the 405 (yet, at least), but they did just release the ANT Agent software for Mac that allows you to transfer the data from the wrist unit to your computer and upload it to your Garmin Connect account (which is free); there is, of course, a Windows version of both the ANT Agent software and the Training Center. Both Garmin Connect and the Training Center display stats for all the information the Garmin collects, and also allow you to enter and track goals. The only downside is that it’s very heavily oriented toward running (I’d like to see some more options for strength training, for example), but for a free application, I certainly can’t complain!

As for downsides, the biggest one is that it’s not cheap: new Forerunner 405s with heart rate monitors (be careful, as some are sold without the heart monitor strap) are currently running at $349 new at Amazon. That’s a lot to spend, but if you’re serious about your fitness - or you just enjoy cool gadgets - I think it’s a good investment. So good, in fact, that we bought two (his and hers).

Another thing to consider - particularly if you have a small wrist - is that the unit is fairly bulky, about the size of a large men’s watch. That’s not necessarily a showstopper, but is something to keep in mind.

The last thing that a number of people commented on in the Amazon reviews was about the bezel. It’s touch-sensitive, and most of the settings and adjustments you make are by tapping, touching and holding, or scrolling your finger on the bezel. It takes some getting used to, but be advised that if your finger is wet it won’t work. Also, any time you set it down or something comes in contact with it, it can “click” something. But there is an easy way to prevent all that: by pushing the two buttons on the unit simultaneously, you can lock and unlock the bezel. So that’s no big deal.

The bottom line for us, as I mentioned, was that we liked the Forerunner 405 enough to buy two. For me, it’s not only something to help me keep track of how well I’m doing, but it’s also proved to be a motivational factor, as well, by setting and monitoring my goals and progress.

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