Setup Polar HRM for more accurate calorie burn for known BMR

tlk2sprkle · April 2012

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Mamafred · April 2012

Bump - Can't wait to see what the difference is. Thanks!!

angbieb · April 2012

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2fit4fat · April 2012

Bump for later

heybales · April 2012

It shows my age as 1 year old... i have huge fat around tummy, how is that even possible?

Some body shapes do throw off the bodyfat calculators. Where they all in close agreement by 5%?

If they were, then the amount of fat you are carrying around is not the determining factor anyway, the bodyfat% calc allows finding out your Lean Body Mass, and the LBM is used in the more accurate BMR calc by Katch-McArdle.

So while you may be carrying more fat, you've also got more LBM than expected for your age/weight/height.

Good news, so if netting above that BMR calc, then your metabolism is that of a mathematical 1 yr old of your height/weight, obviously not really, but that's what the math leads to.

heybales · April 2012

My Max HR for my age on the FT4 is 175, 45 years old. This is automatic you can't change this.

But in real life my Max HR is 195, so I change my age to 25 on the Polar FT4 this set my Max HR to 195 and set my zones correct and in fact calibrated my FT4 to me.

The formula used by Polar for men is 220 - age. So for me that was 220-45=175.

So if you know your maximin heart beat per minute do this 220 - Max BMP = age you need to enter in your Polar FT4.

Right on - thanks for sharing.

I did indeed assume that the FT4 allowed changing that stat.

And that has bigger bearing on calorie estimate.

For others to see your example, if you did an hr at 170 AHR, the HRM would think you were super intense, 5 away from max, like totally anaerobic burning through the carbs.

But in reality, you would be 25 away from max, not nearly the effort it thought you were doing. In fact, 170 at that case is perhaps near your lactate threshold, so while still an intense effort, a big difference on mine. In fact, a change of 3 bpm for MHR made a 20 cal difference for an hour. Interesting to see what a 20 bpm difference makes.

Please report back after your first compare of avg HR matching an old workout.

NancyMarie13 · April 2012

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toshie333 · April 2012

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SweetStellar · April 2012

Gotta check my Polar!

jeefyl · April 2012

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smilebhappy · April 2012

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embclark · May 2012

So my new question is about max heart rate... Why does it matter what my HRM has as my max? And how do I figure out what to change it to if I am supposed to? I think it is set on 200. (whatever it came on or went to based off my info). Thanks!

dany_m · May 2012

Bump for checking later.

heybales · May 2012

So my new question is about max heart rate... Why does it matter what my HRM has as my max? And how do I figure out what to change it to if I am supposed to? I think it is set on 200. (whatever it came on or went to based off my info). Thanks!

That's actually the bigger factor for calorie burn, but a bit more involved.
Why it matters?

If it's set to 200, and you work out at avg HR 160 for 60 min, the HRM is going to think that wasn't much of a workout, pretty decent for you, middle calorie burn. 80% of max.

But if your real max HR is 175, that actually was an pretty intense workout, 91% of max. Lot of calories burned.

So the simple estimate test is at the bottom of the OP.
Of course, if you've ever seen higher than that number recorded as peak HR on your stats after a hard workout, add 5 bpm until such time as you beat it again.