Heart Rate Monitors, How Accurate are they??

Calif_Girl67

Hi there,
I bought a Heart Rate Monitor by Sportsline and it is a 7-Function HRM. I bought this because I wanted to track
my Hearr Rate and calories that I burn during exercise. I am trying to figure out how accurate they are. Most of the
time when I am on my Treadmill it matches up to what my Treadmill says but when I am using a exercise dvd
Im not sure if the calories burned are accurate. Any suggestions on this??

Crys_00

That sounds like the one I just bought. I've only used it for 2 days and it does seem pretty close to the treadmill but it's way under what my elliptical says. Does anybody know of a way to test them?

iplayoutside19

Does it come with a chest strap? If it does it's about as accurate as you're going to get.

Understand there will be some error in any machine we use to measure the human body, just as there is some error in our food labels. It's all a best estimate.

However, counting calories both in and out creates a form of accountability...which is what you're really looking for when trying to be healthy

Mahlissa

I agree, the one's with the chest strap are about the most accurate possibility. You have to keep in mind once you master a exercise, your body will become more efficient at burning calories and you will actually burn less. Make sense?

hope this helps. Good luck.

rileysowner

It must have a chest strap to give any sort of accurate calorie count. Comparing it to the machine is ok, but realize the machine is not very accurate either. It guesses your calorie burn based on averages, but due to your fitness level and various other factors you will burn more or less calories than the treadmill or elliptical would calculate. Always remember, just because a number is there does not mean it is in any way an accurate representation of reality. People want calorie burn information, so the manufacturers provide it, but there is no one out there enforcing it accuracy. They could quite easily bump up the numbers a bit putting them at the top of the average rather than the middle so they can sell more machines marketing their elliptical burning more calories than the competitors when in reality their is no functional difference.

The same could be said for HRM, and it is possible that they do the same thing to make people feel like they are doing more than they really are. I do know that if you don't have a chest strap so you can have constant heart rate information, the calorie burn number is completely useless. It is there because people want it, but without the chest strap there is little way to accurately calculate it as calories burned is connected to how your heart rate changes through the workout. It is always changing but without the chest strap the only things your HRM have to work with are those occasional heart rates you take as you work out and time. It you keep hitting high heart rates, the calories burned will be high, if you hit lower ones it will be low.

If you don't have a chest strap, bring it back and get one with a chest strap.

BTW, I have a Sportline from Wal-mart. It seems fairly accurate, and Sportline sent me a chest strap to replace the strap I had that was wearing out. I am very impressed by their customer service.

Calif_Girl67

Well with my HRM for example I was doing a Leslie Sansone 3 mile walk dvd last night and when I looked at my calories
burned it said like 300+ and I really didn't think that was accurate. Does that sound accurate to you? I just want to make
sure that I am working off enough calories and that its somewhat correct. It is not one that goes around your chest, I was going
to buy one of those but some of the reviews were not very good. Are they more accurate?

Crys_00

Mine does have a chest strap so I guess it is probably pretty accurate but when I was on the elliptical last night it was getting some pretty high readings for Heart rate. I really bought it mostly to find out how many calories I am burning when using the Wii games or DVD's.