Heart rate monitor for intense workouts

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WildePillar
WildePillar Posts: 120 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi all,

What have you guys found to be the most accurate heart rate monitors for high-intensity cardio workouts? I'd like to try to be accurate with my burned calories. I tend to use the elliptical on a very high resistance. Thank you!

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  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    Pretty much any chest strap will be equally accurate. Just remember it's a HEART RATE monitor, not a calorie monitor. Depending on what type of workout you do, it might get you in the right ballpark for calories, or it might not, but that's really not what it's for.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Pretty much any chest strap will be equally accurate. Just remember it's a HEART RATE monitor, not a calorie monitor. Depending on what type of workout you do, it might get you in the right ballpark for calories, or it might not, but that's really not what it's for.

    Pretty much this..
  • musclesandmusic866
    musclesandmusic866 Posts: 1,396 Member
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    Yes chest strap is the most accurate. Fitbits are not accurate. The technology isn't there yet even though they swear by it.
  • markrennie786
    markrennie786 Posts: 8 Member
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    MYZONE monitor - has worked perfectly for 6 months
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    HRMs are not designed to provide accurate calorie estimates for high-intensity workout. So you are looking for a product that doesn't exist.
  • mcw1313
    mcw1313 Posts: 9 Member
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    so for everyone saying that HRMs don't help with calorie estimates....what does?
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    It's not that a computer doesn't help estimate calories with HRM data. It's that the accuracy can be very low, depending on what you're doing.

    A bike with a power meter is probably the most accurate way to gauge your calories outside of a laboratory. Doesn't work very well for swimming or lifting, though.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    If you're going to use heart rate, you should be using a chest strap and software that tracks HRV, not simple pulse rate.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
    edited November 2016
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    megswallace13 wrote: »
    so for everyone saying that HRMs don't help with calorie estimates....what does?

    It can help, depending on what exercise you are doing...I find mine to be good enough of an estimate for steady state cardiovascular activity.

    Your heart rate doesn't directly correlate to calories burned...your HR is used in a fairly simply algorithm to come up with some estimate...this algorithm assumes a steady state event so the further you move away from that (i.e. HIIT or weight lifting, body pump, etc) the less accurate it will be.

    Estimating calories out can be difficult, which is one of the big flaws in using the NEAT (MFP) method. Basically trial and error will flush out the numbers over time. You kind of have to get over this notion that you can not "exactly" and realize that you only need to be "good enough"
  • aussieketogal
    aussieketogal Posts: 73 Member
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    Oh this might explain why my heart rate monitor suggests lower calories burned for an activity that MyFitnessPal suggests a higher rate?
  • GaryRuns
    GaryRuns Posts: 508 Member
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    I've gone through about 8 chest straps for the chest-strap HRMs. Zephyr and Polar. I must sweat buckets or something. Doesn't matter if I wash them, don't wash them, rinse them, whatever. They last me about 6-8 months and then I have to buy a replacement strap at $20+. So, this iteration I'm trying something new. Scosche Rhythm+. It's an optical, but supposedly more accurate than the wrist worn ones like Fitbit (I've never had one of the wrist worn ones so I can't really say). I've had the Rhythm+ about two weeks and it seems just as accurate as my chest strap HRMs were and I haven't had any problems with it losing my HR and I haven't had to spit on or lick a chest strap in two weeks. And it's about the same price.

    Others have warned you that an HRM is not really for calorie counting, and that's true, it's more about helping you exercise in certain HR zones to attain your fitness goals, BUT the HRM is better than just guessing how many calories you've burned. There really isn't a decent, affordable, alternative.

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