Heart Rate Question

aekibler

I started using a Polar heart rate monitor and it said my zone was 137-155. I am usually above my zone the whole time I work out. Is that right? I am a 24 year old female. Also how accurate are the calories burned?

murf19

Hi,

Check out this page. It has some good info.
http://www.fitzones.com/members/Fitness/heartrate_zones.asp

I use the polar and it seems to work well. It breaks it down to my hi and low count as well as time for workout and fat burning. I' wouldn't say its exact but i use the calorie burn number plus or minus.

MisdemeanorM

I have found the cals to be very accurate just based on using mine for 2 yrs combined with a little research and understanding my body and how I work and burn. The HR limits are default. You might need to set them specifically for yourself. Also, there are 3 settings - light, moderate, and hard workout. Yours is likely set to moderate (since I'm close in age and that's close to my moderate settings) In each, the limits are different. Try setting it to hard workout instead of to medium and you will be "allowed" a higher target HR. My hard workout is 155-175 which is a comfortable hard workout range for me. I bet yours are set similarly.

If you can't figure out how let me know. I can grab mine and tell you where it is found, I just can't reach it right now and am being lazy

aekibler

Thank you. My hard heart rate is the same as what you said yours was.

aekibler

Do you mainly set it at the hard workout? I am burning more calories than I thought. Made me feel like it was not correct.

MisdemeanorM

Do you mainly set it at the hard workout? I am burning more calories than I thought. Made me feel like it was not correct.

I leave mine set to hard. I turned off all the alarms though so they would not beep if I were out of range. I know my HR ranges for other exercise - like in yoga, I don't worry about my HR, or walking with my son I don't worry about my HR, (I'm just interested in what the cal count is at the end) so I dont change it back to light or moderate because I'm not aiming for a certain range and it's calculating cals the same no matter where it's set. I leave it to hard because any time I am aiming for a target it would be in hard cardio. It's not hard to switch it back and forth depending on what you are doing, but i don't really see a need to.

aekibler

Got ya! Thanks so much:)