Heart Rate Monitors

Yesterday during my workout I used the heart rate monitors on the treadmill and elliptical. I was doing my normal routine, so I was suprised to see that they showed me in the high cardiovascular range even when I didn't feel that out of breath or extensively challenged. I have never used the heart rate monitors before, so I wasn't sure what to think of the readout.

On the elliptical I had to slow down several times when I felt like I could be going faster or using more resistance because the heart rate showed me going to the "above reccommended" level. I was suprised because I felt like I wasn't really pushing myself. I listened to it though and slowed down a bit.

Has anyone else had this experience? Should I listen to the readouts or just monitor by how much I feel like I'm pushing myself. Also, I wasn't in the fat burning range, so am I not burning fat? I feel like I'd have to be doing super slow motion to stay down in the fat burning range.

Any suggestions?

Thu. Dec 1, 2:50pm

I personaly would not trust those machines. use this formula this will give you a much more acurate number

Link

Thursday, December 1, 2005, 4:53 PM

Heart Rate Monitors and Exercise Equipment

I went thru a similar experience when I first started using a heart rate monitor some 6 years ago, although in my case I was using my own heart rate monitor to train for a triathlon. When I started digging into it, I found:

1. The rule of thumb for "maximum heart rate" for an individual is 220 minus age. If you are 30 years old, then using this formula your maximum heart rate would be approximately 190.
2. This rule of thumb is arbitrary, and not related to good, solid scientific data. In reality individual maximum heart rates vary considerably. For any given individual, their maximum heart rate may be higher or lower than the formula predicts.

As an educated guess, I would suspect that the designers of the equipment you are using set the heart rate monitors on the equipment to be super-conservative. The last thing they want is for someone to have a heart attack and die while using their equipment!

Thus, if your physical condition is better than what could reasonably be assumed to be the worst case for whomever might be using the equipment, then you probably will not get much of a workout using the heart rate monitors.

My own solution for the heart rate monitor problem was to somewhat accidentally/experimentally find that my individual maximum heart rate was "20+ years younger" than the rule of thumb predicted.

Then at my request, my physician tested me on a treadmill to verify that it was safe for me to use this much-higher number as my maximum heart rate. It was and is.

I'm not medically qualified to comment on what you should do in your particular case. For myself, however, I would be inclined to take with a grain of salt the readings you are getting from the heart rate monitors on the equipment.

If you are concerned about injuring yourself, then I would suggest you ask your physician to give you a treadmill stress test, or whatever it is called in your geographical area.

If you would like more information on this subject, I would suggest that you search Google for the terms "maximum heart rate", "heart rate training", and similar. The New York Times has had at least one good article on this in the health section in the past few years, and I have read at least one book on the subject of training using heart rate monitors. Should be lots of info available on the subject with a little research.

Hope this helps more than confuses.

Digby

Thursday, December 1, 2005, 5:35 PM

Heart rate

You should know what your resting heart rate is.
Subtract your age from 220.
Multiply this number by 60% to see what a safe pulse rate might be for you while you exercise. But if your resting heart rate is low like in the 50's the pulse should be lower than if your resting pulse is in the 80s.

Thursday, December 1, 2005, 6:15 PM

Agree with Digby

Your heart rate monitor should allow you to change your minimum and maximum heart rates. I bought the Nike Imara Heart Rate Monitor ($99) and wore it over night. It took an avg of my heart rate for the night and I used that as my minimum.
I also tweaked at my max heart rate while working out. You should only be able to stay at your max heart rate for a max of MAYBE 5 mins. Tweak at it from there. Your cardio heart rate (endurance) you should be able to talk but not want to talk beyond short phrases (and tell the talker to shush). I'm not an MD either, but I hope this helps.
:) Sophie

Thursday, December 1, 2005, 7:15 PM

Original Poster

This is one of the things I love about peer trainer. Thank you all for the wonderful information!

Thursday, December 1, 2005, 8:11 PM

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