Evening,

As just said polar make the best HR monitors, these are what are used for studies and experiments and for sports science in whole. However, your looking at around a £100 for an entry model, which is alot, especially if you just want to know your general HR.

Ive just finished doing some soccer specific training for 4 weeks with a mate for somethig im doing next friday, and this required me buying a hr monitor as university wont lend me their polar ones (mainly cuz there over £200). So I bought a cheap one for £25ish from argos by target fitness. They are fine, they give you a hr readout, but are difficult to function, especially if you want to use the stopwatch function (still havent sussed it so i use a seperate stopwatch). However the main prob is my one isnt backlite which is crap at nite and you cant wear it on your wrist. So what ive done is used a neckstap and clipped to the metal bracket on the back and put blue tack over the open end to stop it falling off. However it still makes checking your HR awkward, even when just running. Therefore I think york do one which is very basic (i.e just states your hr) but you can wear it on your wrist, its got a big read out and its not too expensive if i recall

Oh and yes there the basic principles I would apply to any endurance event. The inclusion of weight, plyometric and interval training can also be very useful but to keep things simple Ive left that out. Hope all that helps