questioning accuracy of hrm

uniquechic

Hi, I have a polar heart rate monitor. I did the first day of the bikini body guide and it said I burned 355kcal in 35 mins. I was very out of breath and sweating but I thought I saw somewhere that heart rate monitors only work for steady state exercise, is this true?

MeanderingMammal

Heart rate monitors monitor your heart rate.

A secondary function is that HR can be used to estimate calorie expenditure in some circumstances, and googly eyed marketeers promote this as their primary purpose for low end consumer devices in order to sell more of them.

The design work for calorie estimation is based on research conducted using treadmills, cycle and rowing ergometers and as a result the calorie estimations will be less wrong for sessions that are similar to that.

I would suggest that you assume about half of your measured expenditure.

hazleyes81

What is bikini body guide?

Also, take a look at the following thread for setting up your HRM properly:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/548645/setup-polar-hrm-for-more-accurate-calorie-burn-for-known-bmr/p1