Polar Heart Rate Monito Question

aznfun1970

Hi MFP Family,

Hoping you can answer this question. My wife and I both use a FT4 Polar monitor for tracking heart rate and calorie burn. I tend to burn way more than her. I know a lot is driven from body type etc, but one of the things that is different is I am borderline high blood pressure and she is borderline walking dead. My heart races a lot faster than hers even if she is working twice as hard/fast on a routine. Are there any monitors that take into account Blood Pressure?

Just wanna gain more insight if there is anything out there regarding that.

natebollinger

You should take blood pressure separately each morning. They key to the heart rate monitor is that you want to be in your target heart rate zone. You don't necessarily want a "higher heart rate" than hers, you just want to be in YOUR target heart rate zone. I typically target about 75% of my maximum (some prefer interval training, etc.). The easiest way to find your max heart rate is 220-age and then multiply that by your target heart rate percentage. Mine is 220-36*75% which turns out to be about 138 BPM. That is the zone that works for me. If you aren't monitoring your zone, you may be working way too hard, hence, burning more calories than your wife and having a higher (maybe dangerously) high heart rate. As you get more fit, you will be able to do more work at a lower heart rate.

Here is some good info:

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/PhysicalActivity/FitnessBasics/Target-Heart-Rates_UCM_434341_Article.jsp

Good luck!

RUNNING_AMOK_1958

Heart rate and high blood pressure are 2 different things. Your hrm uses your age, height, weight, gender, and your heart rate to determine your calorie burn. Your heart rate will begin to decrease as you become more cardio fit. I know that when my husband and I used to do spin class together he burned nearly twice the calories I did. Male vs. female alone is a factor. Weight is another biggie. I have to work really hard now to get the same burn as I used to when I weighed more. My weight and the fact that I'm more cardio fit now affect that. I'll take that any day over a big burn!
http://healthyliving.azcentral.com/calorie-expenditure-men-vs-women-7165.html

aznfun1970

Great insight...thanks!

natebollinger

RUNNING_AMOK_1958 wrote: »

Heart rate and high blood pressure are 2 different things. Your hrm uses your age, height, weight, gender, and your heart rate to determine your calorie burn. Your heart rate will begin to decrease as you become more cardio fit. I know that when my husband and I used to do spin class together he burned nearly twice the calories I did. Male vs. female alone is a factor. Weight is another biggie. I have to work really hard now to get the same burn as I used to when I weighed more. My weight and the fact that I'm more cardio fit now affect that. I'll take that any day over a big burn!
http://healthyliving.azcentral.com/calorie-expenditure-men-vs-women-7165.html

Agreed! I recently lost 65 lb and it's harder to burn as many calories, but man I can do cardio forever without breaking a sweat!

vorgas

RUNNING_AMOK_1958 wrote: »

Heart rate and high blood pressure are 2 different things. Your hrm uses your age, height, weight, gender, and your heart rate to determine your calorie burn. Your heart rate will begin to decrease as you become more cardio fit. I know that when my husband and I used to do spin class together he burned nearly twice the calories I did. Male vs. female alone is a factor. Weight is another biggie. I have to work really hard now to get the same burn as I used to when I weighed more. My weight and the fact that I'm more cardio fit now affect that. I'll take that any day over a big burn!
http://healthyliving.azcentral.com/calorie-expenditure-men-vs-women-7165.html

This is actually not true for a variety of reasons.

1. When you just start out with an exercise, your HR will rise in a stress response. This will register as a higher calorie burn on your HRM, which doesn't know why your HR is beating faster, only that it is. So your calorie count will be over estimated.
2. As your cardiovascular system becomes better, your body's ability to process oxygen improves. It is actually oxygen consumption, not your HR, that is determining how much fat you are burning during aerobic exercise (aerobic itself means 'with oxygen'). As your VO2 Max goes up, your HR will go down for a given level of exertion. However, you are still burning the same amount of calories, because you are using the same amount of oxygen.

If you want a more accurate estimate, use your VO2 Max levels and a calculator that takes it into account. There are also several calculators to determine your VO2 Max. I don't want to get into a big discussion of which is better. Just pick one and use it. Then the increase will at least be consistent.