best HRM for lifting weights

There isn't one.

The is no useful relationship between breathing rate, heart rate, and calroies burned when strength training.

A HRM uses heart rate to estimate oxygen consumption which in turn is used to estimate work performed and hence calories burned. Most strength training does not use oxygen in the chemical reaction to produce energy (it is anaerobic exercise, not aerobic exercise) so using a HRM is about like throwing darts blindfolded.

The high effort and low effort calisthenics entries are solid #'s for strength training. Lots of lollygagging and isolation exercises, and warm up level stuff, use the low effort. Lifting heavy, doing circuits, or otherwise working hard, use the high effort. Or mix them based on how your workout went/what you were doing.

I use mine when I lift my weights and it seems to calculate my HR and calories burned.

HRMs are only "accurate" for aerobic activity. It won't really give you a meaningful number for weightlifting.

I use my hrm for all of my workouts.. cardio and weights... polar ft7. If i'm working out, i use it!

If you're using it for weight lifting, then the caloric burn is inaccurate.

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I use my hrm for all of my workouts.. cardio and weights... polar ft7. If i'm working out, i use it!

If you're using it for weight lifting, then the caloric burn is inaccurate.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Would you say it overestimates? I belong to a lifting group and members often posts their burns and I find the numbers to be extremely high so I'm curious.

I use mine when I lift my weights and it seems to calculate my HR and calories burned.

It estimates them, not calculates them, but it is wrong for non steady state cardio due to the first reply above.

Just because your HRM said you burned 100 cals during strength training doesn't mean you did, and using that number is most likely an over estimate of the actual burn.

for what purpose? I use my Polar to time my sets, but i DO NOT use it for trying to calculate calories burned. It won't be accurate for lifting; only steady-state cardio.

The Polar FT80 was designed with lifting in mind. Look into that model.

I use my hrm for all of my workouts.. cardio and weights... polar ft7. If i'm working out, i use it!

If you're using it for weight lifting, then the caloric burn is inaccurate.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

It's still more accurate then guessing or what MFP suggests. While performing lifts we are anaerobic... which isn't to say that it is "inaccurate" because it calculates calories burned from your heart rate, once a set is done we are back to aerobic activity... i.e. breathing. The more intense your weight training, the higher your heart rate is going to be during and after the set(s). The less intense weight lifting is, the lower your heart rate is going to be. The HRM will reflect this.

To say that it is inaccurate is frankly absurd. It is going to be a more accurate number of calories burned then what MFP suggests or anything else for that matter because the HRM is tracking your heart rate. Calculating heart rate and calories burned is a much more accurate measure of intensity and duration rather than inputting "60 minutes" into the strength training module in MFP because your 60 minutes of weight lifting may be more intense or less intense than the previous day... more intense = more calories burned, less intense = less calories burned. MFP wouldn't reflect this in your calorie burn. A HRM will.

It may not be 100% accurate, but it is going to be much closer to 100% accuracy than any other measure. I use a Motorola Motoactv HRM watch and it has different workouts that you can set for the workout you are doing... running, cycling, elliptical, weight lifting, yoga, etc. I believe this would make it the most accurate HRM because it takes into account exactly what type of training you are performing. I've noticed my calorie burns during weightlifting are lower than what my old Polar F6 have estimated.

There isn't one.

The is no useful relationship between breathing rate, heart rate, and calroies burned when strength training.

A HRM uses heart rate to estimate oxygen consumption which in turn is used to estimate work performed and hence calories burned. Most strength training does not use oxygen in the chemical reaction to produce energy (it is anaerobic exercise, not aerobic exercise) so using a HRM is about like throwing darts blindfolded.

The high effort and low effort calisthenics entries are solid #'s for strength training. Lots of lollygagging and isolation exercises, and warm up level stuff, use the low effort. Lifting heavy, doing circuits, or otherwise working hard, use the high effort. Or mix them based on how your workout went/what you were doing.

FT-80 by polar disagrees..

A validation study proved that heart rate based recovery time improves strength more than training with traditional recovery periods and, on top of that, Strength Training Guidance shortens training time nearly to half[1] – to sum it up, more results in a shorter time.Heart rate monitoring makes your strength training individualized when the Strength Training Guidance tells you optimal recovery periods for effective strength training based on your heart rate.

1. Piirainen et al. Effects of the HR based recovery period on hormonal and neuromuscular responses during strength training in men and women. Oral presentation at the ECSS annual meeting in Oslo, June 2009.

The HRM would be useful for telling you when to start the next set.

It would not be useful for estimating how many calories were burned during the set.

There isn't one.

The is no useful relationship between breathing rate, heart rate, and calroies burned when strength training.

A HRM uses heart rate to estimate oxygen consumption which in turn is used to estimate work performed and hence calories burned. Most strength training does not use oxygen in the chemical reaction to produce energy (it is anaerobic exercise, not aerobic exercise) so using a HRM is about like throwing darts blindfolded.

The high effort and low effort calisthenics entries are solid #'s for strength training. Lots of lollygagging and isolation exercises, and warm up level stuff, use the low effort. Lifting heavy, doing circuits, or otherwise working hard, use the high effort. Or mix them based on how your workout went/what you were doing.

FT-80 by polar disagrees..

A validation study proved that heart rate based recovery time improves strength more than training with traditional recovery periods and, on top of that, Strength Training Guidance shortens training time nearly to half[1] – to sum it up, more results in a shorter time.Heart rate monitoring makes your strength training individualized when the Strength Training Guidance tells you optimal recovery periods for effective strength training based on your heart rate.

1. Piirainen et al. Effects of the HR based recovery period on hormonal and neuromuscular responses during strength training in men and women. Oral presentation at the ECSS annual meeting in Oslo, June 2009.

The HRM would be useful for telling you when to start the next set.

It would not be useful for estimating how many calories were burned during the set.

True but you aren't going to get 100% accuracy on that, I don't even log that anymore..You are also having to take into the effect the afterburn effect of lifting when you get your calorie burn. If I do I just take it and remove 20% and go with that number. I just saw the topic as best HRM for lifting weights.. then the next post was there wasn't one..

I use my hrm for all of my workouts.. cardio and weights... polar ft7. If i'm working out, i use it!

If you're using it for weight lifting, then the caloric burn is inaccurate.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Would you say it overestimates? I belong to a lifting group and members often posts their burns and I find the numbers to be extremely high so I'm curious.

Yep. An HRM measures heart rate. If you lift something heavy say for six reps, and the last 2 are hard, heart rate will go up. But that doesn't mean that the caloric expenditure is the same as a heart rate for cardio.
Heck someone watching a scary movie wearing a heart rate monitor could burn 350 calories during the movie according it's read out.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I apologize for my "n00b" question, but...

If my HRM is useless, how should I estimate my caloric output while lifting? For example I'm going to do 5/3/1 Deadlifts A (BBB template). Should I just pretend there is no burn, or track 30% of the HRM output?

IMO, if you are concerned about cals burned and your deficit, do cardio. If you are using strength training to change how you look, then the cals are largely irrelevant. So I advocate not tracking them.

If you are dead set on tracking cals, guestimate. Pick a number between 4 and 7 cals per minute as an estimate.

I'm doing both; maintaining a deficit to burn fat and lifting to keep muscle. I do cardio when time allows (play indoor soccer and run after work 2 times a week for 3-5 miles). I've been tracking all the calories with my HRM, but this thread is pushing me to not track any lifting burn.

I apologize for my "n00b" question, but...

If my HRM is useless, how should I estimate my caloric output while lifting? For example I'm going to do 5/3/1 Deadlifts A (BBB template). Should I just pretend there is no burn, or track 30% of the HRM output?

I've found this formula to work pretty good:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/76934-calories-burned-lifting-weights/

I lift heavy and my burn is roughly equivalent to a light to moderate cardio workout of the same duration...little bit more than walking, but not quite as much as jogging.

I'm very glad I decided to take my HRM off for strength training all together (before reading this). Truth it I'm doing it for gains and physique over actual calories burned. Great information here though