Heart Rate Monitor

• by ChrisD
• 2014-07-16 12:07:49
• Exercise & Sports
• 1911 views
• 10 comments

OK folks. I am now a Heart Rate monitor expert - just kidding but I do have some really good information to share. After reading a bunch of opinions on heart rate monitors, I decided to buy a Garmin 310XT. It uses a chest band to pick up the electrical signals from your heart (like most of them do) to measure heart rate. It seemed to be working fine; it read my heart rate accurately at rest so why wouldn't it be accurate when exercising? In fact the unit says it is more accurate as you warm up. I know some folks posted that the chest-band type monitors were either not working, not accurate, or double counting. When I printed out the plots of my heart rate, I could see that my PM increased correctly in the rate response mode, but during the most stressful part of my exercise, my heart rate would decrease. I learned that the way these chest mounted sensors work is that they look for the electrical peak signals and count those. In my case, the peak electrical signal from the PM was less than my natural electrical peak. When I was at rest, or not exercising that strenuously, my PM was actually not pacing me. I was relying on my natural heart rate. The monitor tuned itself to that peak. When I increased my HR, I went into AV block much more frequently hence the PM was pacing me frequently. Since the HR monitor only counted the peaks that were a few percent within the "tuned peak" it wasn't counting the other peaks. I returned the unit and bough the just-released TOM TOM unit. It doesn't use a chest strap, nor does it try and sense electrical signals. It uses two bright LED lights and a camera lens mounted on the underside of the watch to illuminate the capillaries and count the beats based on the rhythm of the changing pixels. It works great and has the same features as the garmin such as data storage and the ability to view data plots. It works with MapMyRun to display your route and elevation data too. It carries the same retail price as the garmin unit ($299) but since the garmin unit has been out longer, you can get the garmin from amazon for about $170. There are no such deals for the TOM TOM yet so I paid bust out retail - but I have no issue with the price. I am happy that it works well for my situation.