Technology has made its way into all aspects of life – from cooking improvements and zoom calls to fancy home appliances and watches that can do all, it has certainly made certain areas of daily living a bit easier.
This trait also correlates to the health and fitness realm. All sorts of interesting technological advances are available to help improve wellness markers, keep people accountable, and even track how much sleep you get at night.
Types of Heart Rate Monitors
Out of all of the advances in the fitness world, heart rate monitors are among the most popular. And they’ve been around for a while as well! There are several different heart rate monitors to choose from, but some of the most utilized ones are chest straps and wrist monitors.
Easily portable and typically pretty user friendly, heart rate monitors can give an in-depth look at just how well your body is performing during exercise.
Heart Rate: The Physical Side
When you exercise, the demand for increased oxygen and blood flow throughout the body increases. In turn, this causes changes within heart rate, increasing beats per minute as exercise intensity increases.
However, as a base of cardiovascular fitness is being improved, perceived rate of exertion in correlation with heart rate might not feel the same. For example, someone brand new to exercise might feel that their workout is a high level of effort, and a higher heart rate on their tracker can attest to that.
On the flip side, a higher level of effort might be felt as one improves aerobic conditioning levels, and their heart rate doesn’t go as high as it might have initially.
This is where target heart rate zones come into play – essentially, this is knowing just how many beats per minute your heart is beating during exercise, and then keeping the heart rate within a specific range during a workout in order to improve performance and cardiovascular conditioning. What are the chances that the heart rate monitors that are out on the market are accurate enough to give this sort of information though?
Accuracy of Heart Rate Monitors
Thankfully, several studies have been done in regards to this very question – after all, why wear something that supposedly aids in improving performance if it isn’t accurate to you and your fitness goals?
The heart rate monitors worn around the chest have electrodes attached, which then calculate cardiovascular activity. Heart rate monitors worn on the wrist are more convenient (and sometimes more comfortable) optical technology used to obtain cardiovascular statistics.
One study in particular, from Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, compiled heart rate information from f50 people exercising on different modalities and wearing both chest and wrist heart rate monitors. At the end of the study, it was determined that the accuracy of the wrist monitors was highly dependent on the type of exercise being done. With that being said, movements like walking on the treadmill gave more accurate heart rate readings than higher intensity activities for this particular study.
Another study from Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy had a similar research scenario and determined that the accuracy of the wrist heart rate monitors is variable. Both studies and others have essentially concluded that chest strap versions of heart rate monitors are more accurate than wrist versions (with variability ranging anywhere from 1-20 beats per minute difference between different brands of wrist style heart rate monitors).
Bottom Line
At the end of the day, you’ll need to decide whether or not a heart rate monitor would be beneficial to you and your workout goals. Just keep in mind that if you are using a forearm or wrist version, it will most likely not be as accurate as one worn around the chest. And if you need more precise heart rate representations during your workouts, vesting in a chest strap style might be more beneficial to your health and wellness goals.
Speak with your PCP or personal trainer in order to get more information about the best heart rate monitor for your goals if you need help!
