HRM and calories burnt

GrahamUK72

How accurate are the results?

I use a HRM for circuit workouts or HIIT and I generally burn about 500 calories for 30mins workout.

Is it accurate as it's a dedicated chest strap HRM?

Thx

NorthCascades

Heart rate monitors are sensors that measure your pulse (how quickly your heart beats), and sometimes your R-R intervals (when your heart beats, variations in the rhythm).

These are training tools, meant to help people exercise at a specific intensity, to help people pace themselves during long events, and as a way to judge the quality of a workout after the fact.

They can also guess how many calories you've burned, but that's not what they're for; it's like using the oven as a space heater instead of to cook your food. It'll work, basically, but it's not ideal.

Here are some things that will raise your heart rate:

* Sickness
* Caffeine, energy drinks, nicotine
* Fear, stress, anxiety - fight or flight response
* Dehydration
* Being too hot or cold
* Lots of medical conditions
* Exercise

Your heart rate monitor doesn't know how much coffee you've had or what your mood is like today. It just knows how fast your heart is beating.

Exercise burns calories because your muscles are doing work, which takes energy. It's not your heart burning most of the calories. If you're a runner, most of your burn comes from what your legs are doing.

Calorie burns from exercise can be measured, or they can be guessed. Measuring is hard and expensive so most people don't do it. And that's ok, estimates are usually good enough, especially with the other tools we have available to us.

Sometimes heart rates are a good way to estimate energy use, but a lot of the time they're not. For things like walking and running, simple physics rules. It takes so much energy to move this much weight that much distance, adjusting for hilliness. For weight lifting, your heart rate is completely unrelated to your energy use, you're better off with a formula. It's things like cycling, Nordic skiing, and rowing, where an HRM is most useful for estimating energy use, because there are so many variables with unknown values (eg were you pedaling or coasting, going with the current or into the wind, etc).

GrahamUK72

Thanks mate.

That was a very informative reply. I don't use my HRM for day to day stuff, only HIIT.

Really appreciate your reply.