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Heart rate

1 lurker | 302 watchers
larkim
larkim
3 Feb
4:51pm, 3 Feb 2025
26,537 posts
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larkim
When HRMs work, they are all more than good enough for runners I think. Chest straps seem to be considered by many as some "gold standard" even though counting 150 beats in a minute is just as easy for an optical device to do as a chest strap; arm bands are 100% the best compromise - more likely to work reliably than a watch on many people, and easy enough to keep charged up compared to the very low battery drain on a chest strap that it's not so inconvenient to have to recharge constantly.

Even though my wrist sensor works 99.9% of the time on outdoor running, for some reason when on the treadmill I still get odd readings, so I've reverted to using the Polar OH1+ instead for those runs. Flawless.
Brunski
Brunski
3 Feb
6:32pm, 3 Feb 2025
2,519 posts
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Brunski
Good to hear @Windsor Wool, it's probably been my best value running purchase. I used to knacker out the chest straps pretty regularly.
Bazoaxe
Bazoaxe
3 Feb
6:46pm, 3 Feb 2025
27,964 posts
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Bazoaxe
My polar chest strap is starting to play up and I was thinking about getting a new one. Maybe this is a sign
SPR
SPR
3 Feb
6:51pm, 3 Feb 2025
46,965 posts
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SPR
I do still use a chest strap every so often (Garmin used to only detect LT via one at some point but not anymore) and for intervals it would likely be better in terms of responsiveness (I did a side by side test some time ago and there is a small optical lag) but the Polar Verity is just easier and the reality is I never raced with a chest strap after my first couple of years running because I didn't want to risk any distractions from issues mid race.
J2R
J2R
3 Feb
7:19pm, 3 Feb 2025
5,809 posts
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J2R
I'm one of the fortunate ones who doesn't really have problems with chest straps such that I would need to be looking for alternatives, but I have heard very good things about the Polar arm straps. My understanding, though, is that you still need the electrical monitoring of a chest strap to get precise enough figures for useful tracking of heart rate variability. Please correct me if I'm wrong - it may now be the case that the optical heart rate monitoring in the latest arm straps has become good enough.
jda
jda
3 Feb
7:45pm, 3 Feb 2025
18,412 posts
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jda
I don’t know about precision but there is no doubt that my garmin watch is quite capable of measuring stress (derived from HRV) fairly competently.
SPR
SPR
3 Feb
8:26pm, 3 Feb 2025
46,967 posts
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SPR
Garmin can track HRV at rest well but HRV during exercise doesn't really work with optical in fact I'm not sure it's recorded at all anymore (checking my last chest strap run on runalyze I have it but not for arm band runs). Not seen much (anything?) about the usefulness of HRV during exercise though.

Respiration may be another thing as well (believe this was previously why a chest strap was needed for LT).
Badger
Badger
3 Feb
10:20pm, 3 Feb 2025
17,669 posts
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Badger
This post got surprisingly long on me.
Runalyze tells me that my Tickr Fit optical armband provides HRV, but the optical sensor in the watch does not. I took a look at the ANT+ data streams off a few devices over the weekend, sitting in front of the PC with an ANT USB receiver. It might perhaps change at higher heart rates, but the RR intervals the Tickr Fit was sending were precisely 60/pulse rate in every message. And when I say "precisely", 8 consecutive beats with a reported HR of 65, and for every one the reported RR interval was 0.92285156250 seconds, which is 60/65 to the precision of the data field (1/1024 second). I'll have a poke at the behaviour when running at some point, but that's going to be more fiddly to extract.

Don't have an OH1 to test, do have a H10 and that shows intervals constantly changing and not exactly equal to 1/integer pulse rate, with one exception where the RR was duplicated, maybe because the HRM thinks it missed one and is filling in.

I have a vague impression that my watch thinks my VO2max should be higher when I'm using the Tickr Fit. I don't think I'm going to wear two watches and two HRMs to test this, though, because I'm Just Not Committed Enough.
SPR
SPR
3 Feb
10:32pm, 3 Feb 2025
46,968 posts
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SPR
Interesting, the Verity Sense used to record HRV but it obviously wasn't correct so presumably Polar stopped it via an update.
SPR
SPR
3 Feb
10:35pm, 3 Feb 2025
46,969 posts
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SPR
I had assumed the change was on the Garmin side till your post.

About This Thread

Maintained by Elderberry
Everything you need to know about training with a heart rate monitor. Remember the motto "I can maintain a fast pace over the race distance because I am an Endurance God". Mind the trap door....

Gobi lurks here, but for his advice you must first speak his name. Ask and you shall receive.

A quote:

"The area between the top of the aerobic threshold and anaerobic threshold is somewhat of a no mans land of fitness. It is a mix of aerobic and anaerobic states. For the amount of effort the athlete puts forth, not a whole lot of fitness is produced. It does not train the aerobic or anaerobic energy system to a high degree. This area does have its place in training; it is just not in base season. Unfortunately this area is where I find a lot of athletes spending the majority of their seasons, which retards aerobic development. The athletes heart rate shoots up to this zone with little power or speed being produced when it gets there." Matt Russ, US International Coach
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