fitbit or polar?
callumwalker1995
Posts: 389 Member
My fitbit charge hr in my workout this morning said I burned 726 calories wearing it around my wrist yet the polar watch with hr monitor chest strap said I burned 1590 because it recognised my hr was about 130 on average whilst my fitbit said 90. Which should i trust...the polar because it monitors the heart rate accurately or the fitbit which is just wore on the wrist and cant measure the heart rate accurately?
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Replies
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The polar. I got a fitbit and it wouldn't even count my steps accurately. I sold it and am getting a polar.1
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As a general rule, the heart rate monitor strap is going to be a lot more accurate.1
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BasicGreatGuy wrote: »As a general rule, the heart rate monitor strap is going to be a lot more accurate.
i thought that too but the difference between the two was startling, almost double0 -
What kind of activity were you doing?
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callumwalker1995 wrote: »BasicGreatGuy wrote: »As a general rule, the heart rate monitor strap is going to be a lot more accurate.
i thought that too but the difference between the two was startling, almost double
Sometimes, the heart rate monitor strap can show large spikes in the rate early on, depending on whether or not the wrap had good contact with the skin etc.
I make a point to wet down my strap before I run. That usually takes care of any abnormal readings early on.0 -
Even doing the same exercise will produce different numbers for the same workout in different ecosystems. . . . I can go out on my bike and Strava, Garmin Connect, Endomondo, and MapMyFitness will yield 3 or 4 different caloric burn outputs from the same .GPX file.
All calories burned are pure estimates anyway.
I would be interested to know what you did to burn said calories. That would give a better idea of what to go with.1 -
Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.1 -
sweetbug0130 wrote: »What kind of activity were you doing?Even doing the same exercise will produce different numbers for the same workout in different ecosystems. . . . I can go out on my bike and Strava, Garmin Connect, Endomondo, and MapMyFitness will yield 3 or 4 different caloric burn outputs from the same .GPX file.
All calories burned are pure estimates anyway.
I would be interested to know what you did to burn said calories. That would give a better idea of what to go with.
i did a 2k run and then did weight/resistance training for 2 hours0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.
so are the calories burned wide of the mark from both?0 -
callumwalker1995 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.
so are the calories burned wide of the mark from both?callumwalker1995 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.
so are the calories burned wide of the mark from both?
Sometimes between 100-200 calories for road biking, sometimes 250-350 for mountain biking.
As for running. I have specifically looked at running. I will when I get home and post some screen shots.0 -
callumwalker1995 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.
so are the calories burned wide of the mark from both?callumwalker1995 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.
so are the calories burned wide of the mark from both?
Sometimes between 100-200 calories for road biking, sometimes 250-350 for mountain biking.
As for running. I have specifically looked at running. I will when I get home and post some screen shots.
what about weight training?0 -
Neither of those numbers will be accurate.0
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HRMs are worthless for weight training and calorie counts.3
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callumwalker1995 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.
so are the calories burned wide of the mark from both?
Probably, but I don't have any way to know for sure.
An HRM can give you a pretty good guess how much energy you spent running. It won't be any help for weight lifting. (I wear my HRM when I lift, and sometimes I look at the graph later, but I ignore the calories.)
If you want a really accurate calorie burn, you can hire a medical team and wear a respirator while you work out. Fat is burned with oxygen, and measuring your oxygen utilization will tell you almost exactly how many calories you burned aerobically. (I don't know how they measure anaerobic burn.) But it's expensive and uncomfortable and frankly no one does it.
So your next best bet for these things is to log meticulously, your exercise, your food, and your weight. Then adjust your calorie burn estimates from that.1 -
callumwalker1995 wrote: »callumwalker1995 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.
so are the calories burned wide of the mark from both?callumwalker1995 wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Your heart was not doing 90 and 130 bpm at the same time.
Because of the way the technologies work, any chest strap will almost always be more accurate than any wrist or arm strap. One senses the electrical activity that makes your heart beat, the other shines a small light into your skin and looks for a pattern indicating when your blood vessels expand and contract. If you think about all the opportunities for something to go wrong, you can see why the chest strap is generally much more reliable.
Neither one is a calorie monitor they're heart rate monitors. They have different algorithms to wildly guess at how much energy you burned, and they're seeing different heart rates too. There's some correlation between exercise intensity (which is pretty well correlated to energy expenditure but it's far from perfect) and heart rate, but if you drink a coffee it will raise your HR, if you're stressed that will also raise your HR, etc.
Short answer: the Polar was almost certainly more accurate in terms of HR, which it can actually measure.
so are the calories burned wide of the mark from both?
Sometimes between 100-200 calories for road biking, sometimes 250-350 for mountain biking.
As for running. I have specifically looked at running. I will when I get home and post some screen shots.
what about weight training?
The only reason I wear an HRM when I lift is just so I know what "zone" I'm in and how hard I'm pushing myself, and I'll let the BPM drop between sets. I do not monitor the Calories for my weight training sessions.0 -
i guess i can look at both and change my calories based on how I'm feeling and whether I'm gaining weight or not0
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i guess the fact that my weight has increased by 1.4 pounds since sunday means I'm eating too much!0
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callumwalker1995 wrote: »
Caloric burn is extremely hard for one to measure when exerting effort to lift weights. You can monitor your HR. That's easy. But monitoring Caloric Burn is something completely different.0 -
HRMs are worthless for weight training and calorie counts.callumwalker1995 wrote: »why is that?
* Running very fast will raise your heart rate (like crazy). And it burns a lot of calories.
* Drinking a lot of coffee will raise your heart rate. But it doesn't burn many calories.
* Being stressed will raise your heart rate. But it doesn't burn many calories.
Imagine you're a programmer. It's your job to write a function that returns (tells us) how many calories I'm burning. The only input you have is my heart rate. But you can keep track of it over time if you want. How do you know if my HR is elevated because I'm putting out a lot of effort on my bike, or if it's because I'm driving my car and getting pulled over? To make things even more complicated, a lot of people use cardio exercise for stress relief. So, my HR is elevated, how much of that is because I'm running and how much is the awful work day I'm trying to forget?
On top of that, the way your body produces the energy to lift weights is different from the way you produce energy for a run. The way the chemistry and biology works, you can do a decent job estimating calories from HR for cardio but it just doesn't help with strength training.0 -
Also, systems that use HRV (Garmin and Suunto) do a much better job than systems that only use HR.0
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NorthCascades wrote: »HRMs are worthless for weight training and calorie counts.callumwalker1995 wrote: »why is that?
* Running very fast will raise your heart rate (like crazy). And it burns a lot of calories.
* Drinking a lot of coffee will raise your heart rate. But it doesn't burn many calories.
* Being stressed will raise your heart rate. But it doesn't burn many calories.
Imagine you're a programmer. It's your job to write a function that returns (tells us) how many calories I'm burning. The only input you have is my heart rate. But you can keep track of it over time if you want. How do you know if my HR is elevated because I'm putting out a lot of effort on my bike, or if it's because I'm driving my car and getting pulled over? To make things even more complicated, a lot of people use cardio exercise for stress relief. So, my HR is elevated, how much of that is because I'm running and how much is the awful work day I'm trying to forget?
On top of that, the way your body produces the energy to lift weights is different from the way you produce energy for a run. The way the chemistry and biology works, you can do a decent job estimating calories from HR for cardio but it just doesn't help with strength training.
i only wear the hr strap whilst I'm in the gym though so normal everyday circumstances wouldn't apply would they? although are you saying that my hr strap doesn't know I'm in the gym or something?
what would your advice be then, ignore both?0 -
callumwalker1995 wrote: »
Caloric burn is extremely hard for one to measure when exerting effort to lift weights. You can monitor your HR. That's easy. But monitoring Caloric Burn is something completely different.
but surely just because your heart rate is higher it means your whole body is working harder and thus burning more calories?0 -
callumwalker1995 wrote: »callumwalker1995 wrote: »
Caloric burn is extremely hard for one to measure when exerting effort to lift weights. You can monitor your HR. That's easy. But monitoring Caloric Burn is something completely different.
but surely just because your heart rate is higher it means your whole body is working harder and thus burning more calories?
No, HR does not directly correlate to calorie expenditure.1 -
callumwalker1995 wrote: »callumwalker1995 wrote: »
Caloric burn is extremely hard for one to measure when exerting effort to lift weights. You can monitor your HR. That's easy. But monitoring Caloric Burn is something completely different.
but surely just because your heart rate is higher it means your whole body is working harder and thus burning more calories?
Elevated Heart rate does happen when lifting. Yes. Your heart is pumping oxygen {blood} to muscle that you are using. But If I'm laying on a incline doing benches presses and my heart is jumping for ~88bpm to roughly ~111bpm how much did I use my legs? Or better yet if I'm squat'n 180 pounds and my HR is jumping from ~88bpm to roughly ~148bpm how much did I use my arms?0 -
callumwalker1995 wrote: »but surely just because your heart rate is higher it means your whole body is working harder and thus burning more calories?
Or your HR is higher because you've had a lot of caffeine, or because of your emotional state, or because you're dehydrated. Or some combination of those things plus exercise. How does your HRM know which one is the truth? It doesn't.0 -
callumwalker1995 wrote: »i only wear the hr strap whilst I'm in the gym though so normal everyday circumstances wouldn't apply would they? although are you saying that my hr strap doesn't know I'm in the gym or something?
what would your advice be then, ignore both?
How does it know you're in the gym? It's a heart rate monitor, not a GPS-based phone app.
And, in the gym, are you running on a treadmill, or checking your texts and watching that hot girl walk by? Maybe she winked at you and that caused your heart rate to jump up for a moment. Your HRM has no idea what's going on.
Have you noticed that for any kind of exercise, some people go all out, and other people half-*kitten* it? With HR you can take a better guess which is which, but it sure doesn't spell it out. So if you had a lot of coffee and you're not working very hard, your HRM can easily be fooled.
You're not lifting weights for calories. Ignore them.2 -
The fit bit relies in IR. Sweat can interfere as does water which is why it can't be used for swimming.
Personally, I gave up on HRM's except when I am in a spin class. But even then I don't really take the cal number from it.
I have yet to find an HRM that can be used for swimming. The strap for the polar keeps flipping. Tried it a couple times and got fed up. Might be okay for woman wearing a one piece. But doesn't work for guys.0 -
The fit bit relies in IR. Sweat can interfere as does water which is why it can't be used for swimming.
Personally, I gave up on HRM's except when I am in a spin class. But even then I don't really take the cal number from it.
I have yet to find an HRM that can be used for swimming. The strap for the polar keeps flipping. Tried it a couple times and got fed up. Might be okay for woman wearing a one piece. But doesn't work for guys.
What about the Garmin Tri Strap?0
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