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maximum heartrate too low?

334846
over 1 year ago

I've just bought a forerunner 255, and was always using a TomTom 3 watch.

The wrist heart rate monitor from TomTom was very inaccurate on my wrist. I bought a polar h7.

That worked fine, my max heart rate in runs were about 186 bpm, my rest heart rate is about 44 bpm, verified it with a pulse o2 meter, and a blood presure meter.

I'm quite sure both rest and max are correct.

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The forerunner does a way better job than the old tomtom on the wrist, the rest rate is pretty accurate. However, when i'm walking, or cycling (home/work not very intensive) it states i'm not even in the fat burning zone.

Just did a benchmark run, and my max rate was only 165bpm, about 20bpm to low in my opinion.

To overcome this, i've tried connecting my polar h7. It connects but sends no HR (it does because it works fine on my tomtom), garmin doesn't read it somehow)

I'm tempting to buy a HRM-DUAL from garmin, but when cycling to work, or a small walk i don't want to wear a external hrm. The builtin should be fine.

How can i fix this? I don't mind running with a chest belt, but i think the garmin builtin wrist sensor can be adjusted?

I've tried to search the internet, but many old forums regarding polar h7 (it's an old thing...) I see a lot of firmware issues around the zones per specfiic sport?

any hints or suggestions will be appreciated! 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    You can enter the maximum heart rate manually if you think it is wrong.
    It is difficult to measure it, since it is difficult to come near the maximum heart rate in a workout. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    On my FR255 I find the IR HR sensor to be bad in pretty much any kind of exercise including cycling (walking seems to be about fine).

    I quickly bought an HRM-Dual. I don't think the IR sensor can be "adjusted".

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to ovekvam

    if I read his post correctly his problem is that his IR sensor misreads his HR. I don't think adjusting manually his MaxHR in the User Profile can change this.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to JRKingOfBeer

    It works well for cycling in my case. Also for walking and running, but not so well for skiing (roller skis) or swimming. It is quite useless for weight lifting.

  • +1 over 1 year ago

    Thank you for your quick responses. Yeah it feels like the max measurement is around 20bpm too low.

    I'm not sure if setting max heart rate would fix it, i think i'll just accept garmins readings and adjust my max heart rate. This makes sure that relavity seen the zones are correct. Since my watch is bought for all the sports, i just think this is the best solution than.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to ovekvam

    , in your case, does it feel like the accuracy of the IR sensor depends on if you are exercising indoor or outdoor ? It obviously shouldn't but let me explain.

    I said earlier that my IR sensor works very poorly when cycling: I should have mentioned that this is on the stationary bike at the gym. And same when rowing indoor (90% of my exercise), and brisk walking/running on the treadmill. In fact, when exercising at the gym room, the HR given by my IR sensor doesn't go beyond 80bpm making it unsusable. ANY activity at the gym will require me to wear the chest strap.

    However, when I go outdoor for brisk walking or cycling, the readings with the IR sensor are MUCH better and coherent: I'd say I don't need the chest strap at all.

    I have a theory that perhaps the lighting in our gym room is jamming with the way the IR sensor works. Or something along those lines.

    What do you think ?...

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    it us just frustrating: many times the wrist HRM is spot on, while running, rowing, HIIT, cycling indoors&outdoors... and then again sometimes it is simply useless. Yesterday I had a hard rowing indoor workout with several hard 2min interval at max speed... I was destroyed after every interval. The HRM made it barely above 145bpm which is the start of my threshold zone. It should have been easily 20bpm more.

    No matter what I did, cleaning the sensor, drying my arm, putting it on the other wrist... nothing worked... and so all the data is crooked: a tempo workout was barely regarded as a aerobic base workout. 

    Why is this device so buggy and unreliable? 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to JRKingOfBeer

    Maybe you can test your theory by leaving the watch in the dark with a long sleeve shirt?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to ovekvam

    Very good idea. Let me try tomorrow morning.