HRM Calorie Burn

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jojospero
jojospero Posts: 92 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
If you wear a heart rate monitor watch... when do you stop it? As soon as your done with whatever exercise you're doing OR do you keep it running to cool down? If so how long? I forgot to stop mine a few times when I finished... so I'm sure it showed more calories burned. Hmmmm.... is that cheating?

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  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member
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    The first thing to bear in mind is that HR does not equal calories burned. There is a relationship that allows for a calorie estimate in certain circumstances (most HRM equations are based on steady state cardio) but there is not a direct relationship.
    The second thing is that your HRM is basically a dumb instrument. It assumes that the elevated HR is due to cardio exercise and calculates burns based on that.

    So if you continue to monitor your HR after you stop the activity you aren't getting an true picture of how many calories your are burning because the HRM still thinks you are doing cardio and you are not.

    I'd stop it when you stop your activity. Will it make a huge difference? Probably not, depending on how high your HR was up and how long you take to recover. I still prefer to err on the low side.

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