HRM Acuracy?

JDavid007

So I bought a lower end Polar FT1 and tried it out today on the elliptical…The Elliptical says I burned about 400 calories while the HRM say I burned 539….I still need to compare with the Fitbit but will have to wait till tomorrow. I have my sleep study tonight so I won’t be going home. What are your thoughts on whether I should trust the HRM or not…I did create a custom exercise for the elliptical that reflects the HRM burn!

bikermike5094

my FT7 always reads less than the machines in the gym....

Carim007

In order to validate the info you get from your elliptical and from your HRM, you could try the following calculator ...

http://www.self.com/calculatorsprograms/calculators

Hope this will help

JDavid007

In order to validate the info you get from your elliptical and from your HRM, you could try the following calculator ...

http://www.self.com/calculatorsprograms/calculators

Hope this will help

Thats site was very close with a Calorie burn of 589 for 40 minutes with my weight and height.

dad106

Polar FT1 don't calculate calories burned.. Only the FT4 and above do.

To answer your question though, when HRM's have all info(age, weight, height, gender) and are used during steady state cardio, they can be up to 80% accurate. If you tweak the max heart rate or add in Vo2max, then it can go up to 90% accurate at estimating calories.

SPNLuver83

I have a Timex Fitness HRM and I'm assuming it's pretty accurate because I log in what it tells me I've burned, I eat the 1200 net calories and I'm loosing about 2 lbs a week so the numbers must be pretty accurate!

JDavid007

Awesome. I also compared my HRM to Fitbit and they are very close, about 40 calories off...so I am starting to trust the HRM and FitBit!