Need some heart rate advice:
When cycling my heart rate is through the roof with most of my time spent in zone 5! I feel fine have done this for months and consider myself fairly fit (For my 50 age - have a VO2 max of a 30 yr old), but in ignorance until I got an Apple watch at Christmas.
Problem is local track is hard going with a nearly constant 10%+ gradient for the uphill for the 6km length 400m height so I can't really go less hard and heart rate is at the top of zone 4 for most of it. My heart rate is even higher on the downhill sections, but these are generally shorter runs of less than 2 minute so that is probably more fine! As I say, absolutely feel fine but just very high heart rate now I checked and there are plenty of other guys more knackered than me!!!
Does anybody else note the same with their HR or if this an issue?
I know some watches are inaccurate, but apparently Apple is one the best for accuracy when cycling.....
Thanks
Is this the only route you ride?
How high are you on about?
Other one is how hilly is the course and are you pushing yourself?
My Garmin Fenix watch gives a very high heart rate if the strap is very slightly loose.
I would be tempted to test your heart rate with a chest strap hrm.
When I was looking to get a HRM I was advised not to get a wrist based one as the vibration from the handlebars etc causes it to be more inaccurate. No idea of the science of that though.
My Apple Watch is VERY close to my Garmin chest strap. Within 5%.
When cycling my heart rate is through the roof with most of my time spent in zone 5!
How did you set your HR Zones?
My Apple Watch is VERY close to my Garmin chest strap. Within 5%.
My Fenix 6 and my chest HRM will show very similar average HRs over a decent period but the Fenix is much slower to react to changes (up AND down) so I use the chest HRM when doing sessions with very short intervals.
My other half has an Apple watch and found the HR readings very irratic when exercising.
She uses the Coros HR strap coupled with her Apple watch which seems to work well.
What you're describing sounds more like a software issue than a hardware issue.
When I record runs/rides with my Apple Watch (Series 8) using the native Apple Fitness app all the zones work perfectly, because it uses your health data and baseline HR etc. to work out what HRs should correspond to each zone.
If it was just purely because of vibration/optical sensor inaccuracy then it would be erratic rather than constantly high.
A lot of 3rd party apps available for the watch expect you to input the HR zones manually though, and when left on default are basically useless unless by some huge coincidence your actual zones overlap the defaults.
What is the actual heart rate?
my watch often misfires at teh start and puts it 50 higher than reality.
i think it's a fit issue, as when i push up the wrist a bit and kick start the readings via the native app, it's generally accurate for the remainder
f it was just purely because of vibration/optical sensor inaccuracy then it would be erratic rather than constantly high.
If its one one the watches that have an ECG function you could stop mid ride and see if the heart rate shown by that measure differs from the one being logged during the ride.
i think it’s a fit issue, as when i push up the wrist a bit and kick start the readings via the native app, it’s generally accurate for the remainder
I've seen that mentioned quite a few times now.
The Quantified Scientist on YT certainly thinks the Apple Watches are more accurate than the Garmins, including for cycling, although maybe not mtbing. The smaller Apples are also probably mmore accurate because of the less movement/vibration.
We tested Apple Watches in our lab at work and they performed surprisingly well against chest straps. Just the delay you’d expect with a wrist measurement. I’ve tested mine side by side with a chest strap and the overall difference was negligible enough that I never bother with a chest strap now. Pretty good bits of kit overall for a watch based HR monitor 🙂
Mine (AW8) is good if it’s a tight fit, not good if it’s moving around.
every app seems to use different HR zones. Seems to be lots of standards to choose from.
