Heart Rate Monitor

Nolalee

When do you stop your heart rate monitor to see how many calories you have burned after you exercise? Do you do it right after you step off a machine or stop your activity? Or do you wait a few minutes for your heart rate to recover somewhat? Just wondering....

careyharv

I read it as soon as I am done with the workout and that is what I record in my log. I keep it going though just to see how much I burn after my workouts. No reason - I just like to.

jenschnack

I want to know the answer to this question too

rm830

I keep it going for about a minute till the heart rate goes down a bit...then I stop it.

slsmoot123

I take my heart rate at the beginning, middle, and end of my workout. It gives me a better picture of how hard I'm working for a workout. My HRM also calculates calories burned so it gives a truer account of calories burned if you take your heart rate along and along.

Tourney3p0

It should come out the same either way.

Consider for a moment what would happen if you didn't stop the monitor at all. Let's say hypothetically you finish your workout and then sit on the couch for 5 hours. Then you stop the monitor right before you go to bed. It still monitors a heartbeat for those 5 hours or so, even if your body is at rest and your heart rate is at a minimum. The calories keep going up. Not nearly as much as while exercising of course (or even immediately after exercise), but it keeps going up. Should you log all those calories for those 5 hours? Of course not.

Instead, calculate your BMR. That's the calories you burn in a day doing nothing (sitting on the couch, laying in bed, whatever). Divide that by 24. That's the calories you burn in an hour doing nothing. Divide that by 60. That's the calories you burn in a minute doing nothing.

Now that you know how many calories your body burns in a minute, you should always take this number into account when recording your exercise if you want to be as accurate as possible (though some may argue the bottom line difference is negligible). For example, if you exercised for 30 minutes and your BMR is 1 calorie per minute, you would subtract (30*1)=30 from your exercise calories. You would have burned those calories anyway, so you didn't "earn" them by exercising.

If you do that, it doesn't matter when you stop your heart rate monitor. It will always be accurate.

Breadbar

I stop my heart rate monitor as soon as I complete my intended exercise and this is the number of calories burned that I record. I consider the 'after burn' calories (the extra calories I burn while my heart rate is returning to a non-exercising pace) as my insurance against any inaccurate eating/exercise calories I record as even with weighing my food and using a HRM the counts I record can't be perfect!

Di3012

When do you stop your heart rate monitor to see how many calories you have burned after you exercise? Do you do it right after you step off a machine or stop your activity? Or do you wait a few minutes for your heart rate to recover somewhat? Just wondering....

I do it as soon as I stop my treadmill, therefore it records my warm-up, my actual run and my warm-down.

If you wait for your heartrate to recover, it may not be as accurate as you thought, because the HRM will take the average heartrate and if you wait for your heart to actually calm down, that will go into its equation and the average will actually be slower.