Charge HR and heart rate zone

2essie

I notice in settings I can change my heart rate zone from default to custom. I have a low resting heart rate of 49bpm and my max heart rate seems to be 137bpm. Would it help to change my heart rate zone in settings to these figures fo a more acurate reading. I am not quite sure what this heart rate zone is for.

If anyone could help I would be grateful.

2essie

Anyone?

indianwin2001

Yes-I would change it. The zones are set-up for fat burn for zone 1,which is about 60 to 70 % of max hr, cardio for zone 2 is about 70% to 85% and going over 85% of max hr is zone 3. You don't have to go to zone 3 if your maxHR is 137. Just concentrate staying in zone 1 or 2 for exercising. I hope I explained it good enough,but if you have any questions and I'll try to explain it better.

2essie

Thank you indianwin2001. I will change it. I thought I would need to. Explained beautifully

heybales

How do you know your HRmax is 137?

If that's the maxHR that you noticed during a workout - that is below your HRmax by some amount, depending on when you saw it in the workout, and if you had to stop right then to recovery.

You would normally only be able to reach your HRmax by a very specific effort, and not too long of a workout either, because the muscles get worn out being that intense, and they can't push you hard enough to make the HR go higher.
Plus, as soon as you reached it, you'd have to stop and feel like you would puke normally.
That's HRmax, impossible to hold to that level.

If during a workout you got up to 137 and kept on going just slower, then your HRmax is well above that.
If you could keep at 137 for about 5-10 min but that was about it, then it's probably 80% of HRmax. That would make HRmax 171.

Good resting HR and that indicates good fitness level, so the 171 would not surprise me.

You could also setup your zones in a method that actually uses the resting HR, since that is measurable, and only estimating the other end of the scale for HRmax.

www.calculatenow.biz/sport/heart.php?

NancyN795

This is really interesting. I wish I knew my MHR.

I know that when I'm sitting quietly, my heart rate is around 50, so I think that is my RHR.

I know that when I exercise, I find it very, very hard to get my heart rate over 140. I can do it occasionally, but I can't sustain it.

I do wonder if the standard heart rate zones that FitBit uses are going to give me inaccurate results. According to the 220-age formula my MHR should be 162, but I have never, ever gotten near that. It basically takes all I've got to just get into the "peak" zone according to FitBit (137+) and I never keep it there long. However, I've never gotten to the point where I have to stop and feel like I'm going to puke. I guess I just don't have the will power to push that hard.

heybales

The 220-age that most devices use including Fitbit, is such a huge bell curve of accuracy that you have a better chance of being more than 10 bpm from the calculated then within that range, especially for women the bell curve is bigger.

Mine tested is 194, and has been for years.
Calculated - 174. Which is actually about my anaerobic threshold, I could barely hold that for a good 20 min.

Now that would throw the calorie formula off by a lot, it thinking I was doing HRmax for 20 min, when it's actually a tad below. Talk about inflated calorie burn.

And indeed, it's one of the reasons HRM's may not be all they are thought of for calorie burn.

There is a good connection between calorie burn and HR when factored for HRmax and VO2max (fitness level).
Sadly those last 2 values are rarely known, poorly estimated, and badly assumed.

This is on top of the line Polar that has self-tests for those stats, and compared to actual lab measurements of them.
Pretty sure Polar, who doesn't even sync with other 3rd parties, licensed their formula to Fitbit.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/459580-polar-hrm-calorie-burn-estimate-accuracy-study

2essie

Thank you heybales. I am just about the same as NanyN795 said. The 137 is the max I have ever reached during cardio and it is not sustained. It stayed there for a few minutes at most. I have tried to push it above this but it just never goes higher. At 64 years of age I don't perhaps think perhaps I should be pushing it too hard but thought I would give it a try. No luck.

Thank you for the information. I will play around with the max heart rate zone feature and see what happens.

Edited to add. I have changed my zones to resting 49 and max 171. I think it must be more accurate than what it was at before

NancyN795

I think I'll leave my HR zones alone. I never expected it to be 100% accurate anyway and I don't have confidence that changing things will make it any better. It seems to be working to get me into the right calorie range. My weight loss since I started being better about logging faithfully and accurately seems to be about what I should expect. (Faithfully means no unrecorded "casual snacking" and accurately means weighing everything I can weigh, especially oil and butter.)