Fitness improving but Polar HRM shows no progress??

diverdiza

Hi all.
I've been here a month now. Been exercising on average 4-5 times a week; approx an hour at a time, mostly on a treadmill.
I have been able to increase the incline on the treadmill while still registering lower heart rate than before but yet my Polar F11 HRM fitness test shows no improvement.

FWIW, I've never managed to really get to grips with the devices fitness test: If I set it with "low" activity level then the fitness test puts me at between 16 and 20 - VERY LOW. If I change the setting to "moderate" then my test results are high 40's to early 50s - ELITE!
Now I know I am still pretty unfit so the "elite" is definitely not correct but:
(a) I don't get how such a simple setting would change the outcome THAT MUCH and
(b) even if I accept the "very low" reading I don't seem to make any progress - my resting HR seems to be coming down (now on/just under 60) and as I said I can certainly exercise harder than before but my tests basically come back almost identical.

I know there are other V2max tests I can do but for the purpose of this thread I'm trying to understand the logic/non-logic of the Polar test!

I'd really appreciate some insight.....
Thanks in advance!

diverdiza

Bump??

diverdiza

One more bump before I abandon this... does NO-ONE have any input??

DavPul

Weekends can be slow around the forums. All I can say is that if your fitness is improving, you're winning. Who cares what the HRM says? You can run faster, further and harder than when you started. That's what progress is. Keep progressing, and don't spend a single second thinking about some random numbers on a HRM. Ditch it, and keep trying to increase your pace and distance. Distance and time are the only numbers that matter.

DopeItUp

I wouldn't really be putting any emphasis on the fitness-measuring capabilities of a a $100 heart rate monitor. Who knows how they determine it, all that matters is how your workouts are progressing.

diverdiza

Hi thanks for the replies.. the main reason I want to know is so I can correctly account for my calorie burns because the VO2max setting on the HRM affects that.
(Also slightly concerned that the HRM is detecting some heart anormailty that I'm not aware of! The doctor did clear me for exercise in December but it was a superficial exam - no ECG - and my medical limits for the year are exhausted so trips to specialists are not on the cards..)

DavPul

Somewhere, somehow people here started getting it backwards. HRMs are output, not input. You use them to see what you did, not to tell you what to do. Use it for a general idea of how your cardio workout went, not to tell you precisely what to eat. It's a tracking device, not a meal planner.

A doctor's clearance is 5,000,000,000 times greater than the reading of a fitness toy.

Azdak

The so-called Polar "fitness test" relies pretty much on changes in resting heart rate to assess fitness level. I'm not going to bother with the details, but suffice to say it is a crude method at best.

Many people who are deconditioned have low resting heart rates. Often, once there is an intial decrease after starting a program, there is no further decrease, even after fitness level continues to improve. In my case, even when I had gained 60lbs and was not working out regularly, my resting HR only went up about 6 beats/min and was still in the low 50s.

So, I don't have much faith in the ol' Polar Fitness Test. You can manually enter the VO2 max on an F11. Take the fitness test and when it asks if you want to accept the results, press "no" instead of "yes" and it will give you the option to manually enter a number. Pick a mid-range number like 33-34 (avg VO2 max for your age) and see what happens.

Also, in general, it takes a pretty significant change (increase) in VO2max before it can be detected on any type of submax test--it's just because of the size of the standard of error. We do some much better submax tests in our gym and you don't see huge changes in the results, even when people have substantially improved their daily exercise workloads.

And, finally, keep in mind that if you are doing a lot of steady-state cardio, esp low to mid-level, performance will also tend to level off over time. Incorporating some interval training--it doesn't have to be all-out--just pushing things to the 80%-85% effort level--can improve your rate of progress.

CRody44

If you have been losing weight, are you updating your Polar

diverdiza

Thanks for the new responses - I've not been at my computer hence the slow response.
I appreciate the input.
@Azdak - interesting info on the resting HR and progress! I guess I would count as deconditioned :-( I do definitely mix up the intensity of the cardio almost every session; hopefully its working!
@CRody44 - yes I have been updating the Polar settings.
@DavPul - fair comment..