Heart Rate Monitor Accuracy???

amywhiteley85

I bought a heart rate monitor (a beurer 25, which had good reviews on amazon)

I am female, 27, 123lbs, 5'3 and I think my fitness level is quite good. My resting heart rate is 50 BPM.

I regularly do Les Mills Body Attack, and wore my heart rate monitor for the first time yesterday. Over 50 minutes, it ranged from 140 BPM to 182 BPM, with an average of 160 BPM. I pushed myself as hard as I could and I was literally dripping with sweat. The HRM said I burnt 280 calories. This is a lot lower than what other people report. Les Mills say the average burn for attack is 700+ calories, and other people of similar weight to me report 400-500 calorie burn. Is the HRM really that accurate? I am a little bit depressed at how low the number is!

3dogsrunning

Here is a good post on things that affect accuracy.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/773451-is-my-hrm-giving-me-incorrect-calorie-burn

Another good blog
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472

Make sure your information is entered properly.

A couple of thing to note - you are light, so you are going to burn fewer calories. Also important is that HRMs are less accurate for more fit individuals. I've never done Body attack so I can't really say if that is a decent burn or not.

BrianSharpe

I just had a peek at the Les Mills web site, they describe BoddyAttack as a HIIT workout. HRMs are intended (at least for the purpose of estimating calories) for use with steady state aerobic exercise.