Dou YOU wear an HRM when you lift? Why or why not?

NorthCascades

I'm not asking about calories. That's not why I lift.

Keeping tabs on my HR pays dividends when I ride, hike, and run. When I run any real distance, I go the fastest by staying just under my LTHR. If I'm having a bad day on the bike, sometimes the relationship between my power output and my HR can give me a clue about why (bonking? dehydration? or fatigue?). It's less useful hiking, but I have an alert telling me to slow down when I get near my threshold, helps me pace myself on long hikes in the mountains with friends, when nobody wants to be the one holding the group up.

I've been lifting for about six months, and so far I haven't found any way to benefit from knowing or recording my HR. Is there anything I'm missing?

RoxieDawn

I wear mine.. nothing elaborate other than to record the lifting as an "activity" and what small amount of calories I do burn which I allow it to adjust my total calories for the day (I do nothing with these calories) however I might use AVG HR and MAX HR captured in my lifting only because I do run 3 hours before lifting and they way I have my running setup through the week, it can give me a very small variable to consider in performance..

NorthCascades

I record the lifting I do as an activity, regardless. I wear a Garmin watch, it only takes a couple of button presses, and then it's on my calendar.

I'm only wondering if it makes sense to wear the chest strap while I do this.



^ Not my calendar. Just an example of why I keep a record. I have notes in there about what I did and how it felt.

AnvilHead

I track my workouts on my Apple Watch and it has a built-in HRM, but I don't pay much attention to it. I really can't see any good reason to wear an HRM while lifting unless your HR means something to you for some specific reason.

usmcmp

I only wear a HRM when doing races to ensure I keep a steady pace.

Sloth2016

Yes.
Rationale: If it registers zero, I know I get to stop.

Sued0nim

Yes

And I eat them all minus about 100 too

Which is an anethama but is how my bio feedback works ..it must be based on supersetting

Azdak

There is no reason physiologically to wear a HRM while lifting. The calorie counts are meaningless, and the HR readings themselves dont provide useful info either (referring to WEIGHT LIFTING, not circuit training).

MeanderingMammal

The data record has no information value, so no.

Misssynth

I wear my fitbit charge HR constantly to monitor how many calories I'm burning through the day, not just my work outs, but I do also set it to record the whole session when I hit the gym. Mine is just so I know how many extra calories I've burned and how hard I've worked, I compare each session with the last to monitor my progress.

StealthHealth

NorthCascades wrote: »

I'm not asking about calories. That's not why I lift.

Keeping tabs on my HR pays dividends when I ride, hike, and run. When I run any real distance, I go the fastest by staying just under my LTHR. If I'm having a bad day on the bike, sometimes the relationship between my power output and my HR can give me a clue about why (bonking? dehydration? or fatigue?). It's less useful hiking, but I have an alert telling me to slow down when I get near my threshold, helps me pace myself on long hikes in the mountains with friends, when nobody wants to be the one holding the group up.

I've been lifting for about six months, and so far I haven't found any way to benefit from knowing or recording my HR. Is there anything I'm missing?

You're not missing anything - there is no benefit from knowing your HR when lifting. The weight on the bar/reps/sets is what (I assume you are already and) should be recording.

sijomial

I used to wear one just to keep track of my recovery between sets (as soon as it dipped under 100bpm it's time for next set for example). Really that was only out of interest and at the time I was mostly lifting in a fast paced style.

Can't be bothered these days and just go by feel. Often I wear the HRM watch as it has a timer and is waterproof but I don't put the chest strap on unless I'm doing cardio.

singletrackmtbr

I wear mine with a chest strap. Anecdotally I am in maintenance, and I have had no problem staying at my goal weight. I eat back all the calories my Garmin gives me.

jrdouce

I wear mine, a garmin vivoactive HR, just to capture the activity to my dashboard.

cwolfman13

I don't...I used to a long time ago but I could never determine the value of the data so I stopped.

jjpptt2

sijomial wrote: »

I used to wear one just to keep track of my recovery between sets (as soon as it dipped under 100bpm it's time for next set for example). Really that was only out of interest and at the time I was mostly lifting in a fast paced style.

Can't be bothered these days and just go by feel. Often I wear the HRM watch as it has a timer and is waterproof but I don't put the chest strap on unless I'm doing cardio.

same here

Leadfoot_Lewis

No, because I don't care about my HR when I'm lifting. When I'm doing cardio I DO care as it's a cardiovascular activity (obviously!) and I'm interested where my HR is on intervals, as well as my recovery HR at rest intervals.

sarahkw04

I wear one. We spend the first 20 or so minutes of our sessions doing circuit work as a warm up, then we superset everything. I don't eat the calories back, really - I focus on macros - but I like seeing the numbers.

NorthCascades

singletrackmtbr wrote: »

I wear mine with a chest strap. Anecdotally I am in maintenance, and I have had no problem staying at my goal weight. I eat back all the calories my Garmin gives me.

You have an F3HR, right? Another reason I wear the chest strap sometimes is to save juice in the watch. I'd just turn the wHRM off for strength training if I could, but I can't, and part of me feels like I shouldn't waste battery power on bad numbers.

NorthCascades

StealthHealth wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

I'm not asking about calories. That's not why I lift.

Keeping tabs on my HR pays dividends when I ride, hike, and run. When I run any real distance, I go the fastest by staying just under my LTHR. If I'm having a bad day on the bike, sometimes the relationship between my power output and my HR can give me a clue about why (bonking? dehydration? or fatigue?). It's less useful hiking, but I have an alert telling me to slow down when I get near my threshold, helps me pace myself on long hikes in the mountains with friends, when nobody wants to be the one holding the group up.

I've been lifting for about six months, and so far I haven't found any way to benefit from knowing or recording my HR. Is there anything I'm missing?

You're not missing anything - there is no benefit from knowing your HR when lifting. The weight on the bar/reps/sets is what (I assume you are already and) should be recording.

Ok, thanks. That's what I'm logging, and sometimes a brief note about how it felt. I can see the value in that for sure.

NorthCascades

sijomial wrote: »

I used to wear one just to keep track of my recovery between sets (as soon as it dipped under 100bpm it's time for next set for example). Really that was only out of interest and at the time I was mostly lifting in a fast paced style.

Can't be bothered these days and just go by feel. Often I wear the HRM watch as it has a timer and is waterproof but I don't put the chest strap on unless I'm doing cardio.

You know, "go by feel" doesn't work very well for me on the bike or when I run, because I get into the zone and tune everything out. But lifting is completely different, that doesn't happen. I always just wait until I feel recovered.

I still wear the watch (it only comes off to charge) but I've been thinking about not wearing the chest strap anymore and it sounds like that's the right call.

StealthHealth

NorthCascades wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

I used to wear one just to keep track of my recovery between sets (as soon as it dipped under 100bpm it's time for next set for example). Really that was only out of interest and at the time I was mostly lifting in a fast paced style.

Can't be bothered these days and just go by feel. Often I wear the HRM watch as it has a timer and is waterproof but I don't put the chest strap on unless I'm doing cardio.

You know, "go by feel" doesn't work very well for me on the bike or when I run, because I get into the zone and tune everything out. But lifting is completely different, that doesn't happen. I always just wait until I feel recovered.

I still wear the watch (it only comes off to charge) but I've been thinking about not wearing the chest strap anymore and it sounds like that's the right call.

HRM chest straps stop you from bouncing the bar off your chest on bench press and therefore IMHO are performance de-hancing.

BusyRaeNOTBusty

I do not wear mine. Don't see a reason to.

VintageFeline

StealthHealth wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

I used to wear one just to keep track of my recovery between sets (as soon as it dipped under 100bpm it's time for next set for example). Really that was only out of interest and at the time I was mostly lifting in a fast paced style.

Can't be bothered these days and just go by feel. Often I wear the HRM watch as it has a timer and is waterproof but I don't put the chest strap on unless I'm doing cardio.

You know, "go by feel" doesn't work very well for me on the bike or when I run, because I get into the zone and tune everything out. But lifting is completely different, that doesn't happen. I always just wait until I feel recovered.

I still wear the watch (it only comes off to charge) but I've been thinking about not wearing the chest strap anymore and it sounds like that's the right call.

HRM chest straps stop you from bouncing the bar off your chest on bench press and therefore IMHO are performance de-hancing.

*Only applicable to men and tiny busted ladies. Heh.

I wear mine but I do circuit/superset type stuff (Fitness Blender) so the numbers are for me to eat. If I was doing Strong Lifts (other lifting programs are available) I likely wouldn't and would just use it strictly for cardio stuff.

I have the Garmin Vivoactive and pair with chest strap.

lyndseybellz

i wear one to pair with my apple watch to track the length of my workouts as well as my TDEE for the day. if you dont care about your calories though i dont see why you'd need to. i just wanna make sure i'm eating around maintenance every day is my only reasoning.

JeffGVA

Great timing as I actually wore mine for the first time today. Did my regular cardio and then decided to hit the button for lifts. I was surprised to see how high my HR went (approaching 170) during sets. Made me realize (1) I am working hard, and (2) maybe too hard. Tracked kcals too. I like the idea mentioned by others of using it to know recovery time between sets. I will do that going forward as I don't want to keel over getting healthy particularly!

peaceout_aly

I've been interested in getting one and have looked into it, but I feel like people use them to track calories for the most part and I don't want to spend the money just to know exactly how many calories I burned. Then I'll just be more willing to eat whatever at the end of the day because I know I have X amount of calories leftover. I'd rather just work out hard, feel the burn, and eat back my set amount of macros that are alotted.

quiksylver296

No. Don't care enough about that stat.