Heart Rate Question

If I jog for 20 minutes and I notice that my heart rate monitor says 161 bpm (about 80%) for a while and then I get tired and walk, lowering my heart rate to 130 (a little less than 50%), and then I kick it back into high gear and get back up to the upper 150s or 160s what is my overall heart rate? Do I average the high and the low?

Replies

  • SonicDeathMonkey80
    SonicDeathMonkey80 Posts: 4,489 Member
    The HRM should do the math for you, even if you're doing an interval workout (unless you're creating new workouts each time you change speeds).
  • jameswhayhurst
    jameswhayhurst Posts: 9 Member
    Mine is just a band and then a watch that shows heart rate. It doesn't do much more than that.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    If I jog for 20 minutes and I notice that my heart rate monitor says 161 bpm (about 80%) for a while and then I get tired and walk, lowering my heart rate to 130 (a little less than 50%), and then I kick it back into high gear and get back up to the upper 150s or 160s what is my overall heart rate? Do I average the high and the low?

    Does it really matter if you are not monitoring it for cals burned anyway? It would not be the average of the high and the low, the average would be a long calculation using a weighted average for each second your HR was at a given BMR. in 20 minutes you may have 5 mins at 160, 30 seconds at 158, 156, 152.... so taking an average of high and low would really not give you your average HR.

    Even Polar F-1 gives average HR for the duration, but not cals burned, that you can plug the average HR into an online calculator to estimate the burn. Yours doesn't even give you average HR? Did you check all the settings?
  • SonicDeathMonkey80
    SonicDeathMonkey80 Posts: 4,489 Member
    I'd just check it at a regular interval (10min?) and average them all after you're done. You'll go nuts trying to calculate burns segment by segment, unless you're doing a dedicated warmup and cooldown.
  • adipace815
    adipace815 Posts: 112 Member
    I'm not sure which brand HRM you have but most of them have an online app that does all the work for you. I have a Polar H7 chest strap which syncs with my Polar Loop arm band. At the end of a work out, I tether it to my lap top or let it blue tooth sync with my cell phone and I can look at the heart rate data for the entire workout. That should give you an idea of what you are burning for the entire workout.
  • aswearingen22
    aswearingen22 Posts: 271 Member
    I think the question is why do you care what your average heart rate was? Are you trying to train in a certain range? Or is it to calculate calories burned?