Heart rate monitors on gym equipment

rusty the athlete

How accurate are these monitors on treadmills, bicycle machines and cross-trainers. Sometimes they don't register at all or provide wildly fluctuating measurements over very short periods. I'm wondering if sweaty hands affect the measurements or maybe I should be having a word with the doctor. Ive had measurements as low as 63 and as high as 181 within minutes on the same piece of equipment.

Alf Veedersane

I'd pay zero attention to the heart rate on them.

silverharp

i got my own wearable one recently that works with my phone, what i found was it was very similar to the machines however my problem with the machines was that they were unreliable , either not working or switching on and off. i'd imagine your numbers arent jumping around that much, learn to take your own pulse perhaps

rusty the athlete

silverharp wrote: »

i got my own wearable one recently

Thanks silverharp. What sort of device is it that you have attached to your mobile? There seems to be a plethora of different sorts of device out there and I wonder what you are using and whether it is giving reliable info. You must be attaching some sort of sensor to yourself.

silverharp

rusty the athlete wrote: »

Thanks silverharp. What sort of device is it that you have attached to your mobile? There seems to be a plethora of different sorts of device out there and I wonder what you are using and whether it is giving reliable info. You must be attaching some sort of sensor to yourself.

the one below is the one i got, its a band that goes around your chest and it connects to the phone via bluetooth. its reliable

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wahoo-TICKR-Heart-Monitor-Bluetooth/dp/B00INQVYZ8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1547019051&sr=8-3&keywords=heart+rate+monitor

freemenfitness

Yeah I would recommend a good chest strap version I have used the polar H7 for years and use it for HRV readings too very handy piece of kit especially if your looking to train in a specific heart rate range etc.

Triceratops Ballet

I have a HRM with a chest strap and often depending on the machine my heartrate is picked up by both my machine and the one next to me only for the person on that machine to grab the handles take their own heartrate let go and look totally confused as to why it shoots up when they let go. That could possibly account for the crazy fluctuations you're seeing.

Macy0161

Just to caution, that even chest HRM don't work for everyone. I know someone who had such variations/ spikes in HR data when exercising using various chest straps that they were ultimately referred to a specialist! Nothing untoward showed up with the medical testing, but they were told (to paraphrase) "if a single strap was that accurate and reliable, don't you think we'd use it rather than the hitec equipment we've put on you here?"

fwiw I do use a (Garmin) chest strap HRM when exercising, with my Garmin watch.

brownej

rusty the athlete wrote: »

How accurate are these monitors on treadmills, bicycle machines and cross-trainers. Sometimes they don't register at all or provide wildly fluctuating measurements over very short periods. I'm wondering if sweaty hands affect the measurements or maybe I should be having a word with the doctor. Ive had measurements as low as 63 and as high as 181 within minutes on the same piece of equipment.

These sensors are not necessarily that great.

You shouldnt gab the ones on the treadmill while running though, thats liable to reult in an accident, some treadmills will flash at you to tell you to let go if its moving above a certain rate.



If you want to track your heart accurately then a chest strap is the way to go. Someone has already recommended the Polar H7, I had this for years and it is good, I have since upgraded to the Polar H10 and it seems to be a bit better. Connects to the phone over bluetooth, will also pair with a bluetooth smart watch also.



If you dont want a chest strap then you can use a wrist activity tracker like a fitbit. These use optical sensors to measure heart rate and are not as accurate as the chest strap and can lag the actual reading by a few seconds. The chest straps are measuring electrical activity from the heart whereas the optical ones are using some clever interferometry to measure the expansion and contraction of blood vessels. (The science here is actually quite interesting if you're into that.)


If you do get a chest strap and plan on wearing it regularly make sure you buy a spare strap (the sensor unit is detachable). The straps get really sweaty and manky. They are usually washable but its good to have a spare.

Muahahaha

rusty the athlete wrote: »

How accurate are these monitors on treadmills, bicycle machines and cross-trainers. Sometimes they don't register at all or provide wildly fluctuating measurements over very short periods. I'm wondering if sweaty hands affect the measurements or maybe I should be having a word with the doctor. Ive had measurements as low as 63 and as high as 181 within minutes on the same piece of equipment.

Dependent on your age & fitness 180 could be too high and checking in with a doctor would not do any harm. Im saying that as someone with a heart condition that was initially revealed by a monitor on a threadmill. The monitors are not exactly accurate but having used them across a number of machines they all showed very high heart rates when exercising which a cardiologist later confirmed in their tests. Turned out my heart had rhythmic problems from birth, I would never have known but for using the monitors on the machines and suspecting something might be amiss. I'm not saying it is the case here but you only have one heart, get it checked out.

rusty the athlete

Muahahaha wrote: »

I'm not saying it is the case here but you only have one heart, get it checked out.

Good advice, will do, many thanks.

rusty the athlete

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

I'd pay zero attention to the heart rate on them.

I conducted a couple of experiments on the treadmill, bicycle and Xtrainer at the gym. Instead of doing what I normally do, ie, change my hand position during the excercise, I kept my hand resolutely on the monitor pads for the whole session. The result was that all of the machines behaved normally. The monitors registered 110-111 beats at the start, and would start out at and remained in the 111-113 range for three quarters of the excercise. So stable was the reading I put the resistance level up severly for the last 5 minutes to see if any change was registered. Sure enough it moved up to 125 then began to slowly fall back



So I guess it depends on how one uses these monitors. Moving ones hands on and off does seem to mess them up to the extent they start displaying erroneous data.