Heart rate monitor during weight training

[vinotauro]

I thought I'd share my thoughts + tips using the heart rate tracking during weight lifting. Here is some information before I start...

Today I tested the monitor doing german volume training (10 sets of 10 repetitions) and here are the exercises I did.

1.) Pull-Ups

2.) Reverse Grip Bent Over Rows

3.) Lat Pull-downs

4.) Lat-Pull Over with Dumbells

5.) Cable bicep curls w/ straight bar

6.) Straight arm pulldowns

I'm listing all the exercises to emphasize the heavy arm and wrist movement during the workout.

Anyways, as a personal trainer, It's important for me to know how to palpate heart rates especially if I need to know what 'zone' my clients are in depending on their goals of course. What I've found is that the Blaze stayed fairly accurate the entire time with a hiccup here and there.

After every set, I palpated my heart rate (usually for 10 seconds then multiplied that number by 6, or counted by 6 and added a zero) and then I gave the Blaze a few seconds to 'catch up'. What I found was that the tracker stayed within 3-5 BPM of what I did manually. I'm sure I palpated MOSTLY accurate but there were times perhaps I miscounted by maybe one or two beats. 

Sometimes the heart rate counter would disappear and reappear after a few seconds but it was NEVER incredibly inaccurate (like 15-30 beats from the manual palpating). I wore the Blaze higher on the wrist and made sure it was more tight than it was during 'regular' use at home or work. Make sure that the Blaze is unable to move around while training!

I hope this helps anyone else who decided to want to use this for something like weight training.

[Rookey]

Hi vinotauro . I tracked mine today at the gym. Seemed pretty close to treadmill machine but later when I started doing some steep inclines and my heart rate went up to 130 it seemed to be off by 15-2n BPM compared to treadmill which usually matches my Polar strap. I sweat and it was wet under the strap plus I have hairy arms. I read somewhere about turning watch upside-down so the sensor faces the veins on the underside of the arm, where I usually check my pulse. I wondered if you had tried that? I'm going to give that a shot next time I do some cardio.

Summary: Seems to work well at rest or lightly exercising but goes awry at higher heart rates.

Thanks for any feedback.

[vinotauro]

To reiterate, I found the tracker fairly accurate though I may try it on the under side as well. I've read that perhaps it updates faster that way though I cannot confirm that myself. Tomorrow I will update this thread after my sprint work tomorrow

[vinotauro]

Another test run today...

High volume leg day so not too much arm activity aside from the zercher Squats. For the leg workout it generally took 5 to 10 seconds to update my actual heart rate.

I also added kettle bell swings with a heavy bell to spike my heart rate faster. After roughly 10 swings I reached 160 BPM manually palpated. The blaze reached that point after roughly 5 to 10 seconds.

I also did an elliptical run for a few minutes mainly for testing purposes. While using the machines own hr monitor, the blaze was either exactly the same or exactly one or two off.

[Rookey]

Thanks for the update, that's encouraging. I did a connected GPS bike ride today and compared to my Sigma bike computer with HR strap. Blaze HR seemed to be right on. I do notice that if the wrist band slips down my wrist the HR seems to go up. After I re-adjust, it settles-down again.

On another note, the GPS mapping was fairly accurate except that it was off by 2.5 miles. Noticed on the map where the 2.5 mile gap was not logged either. Not sure if my phone lost GPS, was under some high-power electric lines and the Sigma is wireless. I'll keep trying and see if I discover something. Sorry, another subject. Thanks for the update.

[bbarrera]

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@vinotauro wrote:

After every set, I palpated my heart rate (usually for 10 seconds then multiplied that number by 6, or counted by 6 and added a zero) and then I gave the Blaze a few seconds to 'catch up'. What I found was that the tracker stayed within 3-5 BPM of what I did manually. I'm sure I palpated MOSTLY accurate but there were times perhaps I miscounted by maybe one or two beats. 

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@vinotauro what would really help is if you did the following:

- wore a chest strap, like Polar, and recorded HR

- wear Blaze and start workout

- no 'cheating' - don't let Blaze 'catch up' - go about your normal weight lifting routine and ignore the Blaze and chest strap. I'm pressed for time in the gym and quickly move from one routine to the next without stopping to manually check pulse and then give my optical HRM more time to 'catch up' 

- throw in some barbell work, at least bench press

After the workout compare the two HR graphs. Don't compare the average HR. With Surge and Apple Watch I would get 60-80bpm on the graphs, while my chest strap would show 130-160bpm. I ride over 100 miles a week, at 18-22mph pace, and know what 150-160bpm feels like (just rode a century with lots of climbing, 6 hours at almost 150bpm average), and when I'm hammering out sets under a barbell or dumbbell work I'm definitely in the 130-160bpm range. 

Also, weight lifting is non-step based, anerobic exercise, the opposite exercise of what Fitbit trackers are optimized for (Fitbit optimized for step based, aerobic exercise). I kinda doubt the accuracy of calorie estimates for weight lifting, along with the issues I've had on HR accuracy mentioned above. In addition Fitbit help site states that HR accuracy can be an issue for these activities:
- spinning
- high-intensity interval training
- P90X
- boxing
- weight lifting
- rowing
- dancing
- push-ups
- other activities where your wrist is moving vigorously and non-rhythmically
- other activities with extreme arm motion

so if Blaze HRM is consistently accurate versus chest strap on any of the above, consider it a bonus. Not that many folks will actually take the time to test it repeatedly against a chest strap... other than DCRainmaker on running/cycling, so I'm not holding my breath.

[vinotauro]

I wasn't making a direct comparison on a 1:1 ratio of time of what my heart was vs what it said on the tracker, I just wanted to see how long it took to catch up. Sorry if I made anyone thinke otherwise. I'm not sure why you mentioned barbell work, I did barbell overhead presses and reverse grip rows. I hope this helps.

[bbarrera]

I noticed you said HR was 'fairly accurate' which it can't be if you have to pause, hold wrist still, and wait for it to 'catch up'

Wasn't sure if rows were on a machine... didn't see any mention of OHP.

Thanks!

[vinotauro]

I guess you're right thank you for clarifying. Yes it takes roughly 5 or 10 seconds to catch up, I take roughly 45s to a minute for rest

[Ryan18]

(updated at the end) I like how the Blaze commercial has a guy playing basketball with the watch on, but the list of activities the Blaze has trouble with HR accuracy includes:
"- other activities where your wrist is moving vigorously and non-rhythmically
- other activities with extreme arm motion"
I've used the Blaze on several workouts now. It seemed to do fine for running. I'm undecided if it's worth issuing for weight lifting or kettlebell . I noticed a delay of about 20" on the Blaze catching up to my actually HR after a set. Additionally, it was highly inaccurate at times. Almost 100% of those inaccuracies are the Blaze having my HR far below my actual HR.
I did find that tightening the watch tighter than I would have thought necessary did help some, but not with the delay. The slight improvement after tightening it more will make me give it another chance, but we'll see (any tighter might cut off a little circulation). Blaze HR is great for everyday life and probably running, maybe exercises where a person's HR gradually increases/changes. I think "Fitness Watch" implies it's more broadly capable than it is, perhaps "Running" or " Waking" watch is more fitting.

**After having it for three weeks I would recommend NOT buying this unless you only want it for everyday life and/or running**

After showing some promise after tightening it even more over a week ago, I can now confidently say the Blaze HR monitor is BAD at detecting my heart rate during, weight lifting (no matter if I"m doing arms, legs, back, etc), kettlebell and plyometrics. It did well on the treadmill. MOST of the time, it is not even in the correct zone, always low. Within the mentioned activites, I've tried every combination of tightness and placement on my wrist. From time to time it'll be accurate, but it's rare and not often enough to include in my workout. The higher my heart rate the worse it gets. It MIGHT be okay if your heartrate never get over 120-130. A $20 stopwatch and $180 in gear/equipment is a much better way to improve your workouts.

[AdamMSC]

I've had mixed results with the blaze as far as hr monitoring goes. It's been  good at times, and at other times it his highly inaccurate. The problem is that it is difficult to tell why or when this is going to  happen. I've had it high on my arm, low on my arm, and everywhere inbetween. Some of the time there is a lag and then it catches up; other times it doesn't come close to my max heart rate. It is almost always a little bit off as far as the max goes, and sometimes it is not even close. Mostly the inaccuracies come from spikes in my heart rate opposed to gradual increases. I think the device really is great for everyday tracking and for a general picture of cardio-based exercises. My feelings towards its tracking ability for anaerobic exercises has changed over time, and I have found it to be generally inaccurate for most of those activities when doing a full workout. Example: when doing a full workout consisting of mostly anaerobic exercies, most of the analytics (max hr, avg hr, calories burned) were off. If I do a short workout, the devices (chest strap and Blaze) don't have time to separate themselves. So any workout over, say, 45 minutes produces much different results between the accurate chest strap and the somewhat accurate Blaze.

[Rookey]

More thoughts after I've used for a while: During my warmup on a treadmill for 10 minutes, I set Blaze to treadmill. It usually shows my HR around 160. Seems to happen a lot. After that I'll log a little more than 1 hours with Weigths function and that is generally pretty close. If I mix my workouts, I use Workout versus Weights function and that is close.

I also tighten my strap and wear higher up from my wrist. Funny, I've noticed an indent in my arm where the sensor rests.

Of course all of this is registered for a 67 yo and I don't push myself for a maximum workout.  Just my $.10

[silentium]

I have tested the Blaze for some time now. My experience is very similar to yours. However, my Blaze takes significantly longer than 5-10 seconds to catch up to my actual HR. It takes the Blaze about 45-60 seconds to catch up. Anyone else experiencing this extended lag? My Blaze appears to be slow at times anyway... I am wondering if my Blaze is not working properly?!

[fudge22]

I experience an average of 1 to 3 seconds lag for my blaze to catch up to my heart rate. 

[silentium]

Is this during lifting in the gym? What's your average heart rate? Mine is between 100 - 130 bpm and usually the Blaze shows a heart rate of ~80 while I lift and then when I rest it takes 45-60 seconds until it slowly walks up to show the correct heart rate between 100-130bpm. Does yours jump directly from 80 or so to 120 bpm in 3 seconds?

[fudge22]

I don't do much lifting in the gym, but when I run for example, or even on a walk where I walk up a long flight of stairs, my blaze immediately shows me the elevated heart rate as I am doing the activity. 

To answer the question, yes, it immediately jumps up as my heart rate goes up. 

A simple example of a short run would be a starting heart rate of about 60. As I prepare for the run and start moving around it goes to like 70. As I start running it goes from 70 to 140 in less than a minute as my heart begins to start working. As my heart rate goes up, the monitor reflects the increase almost immediately.

Try testing it out with a simple treadmill run to see how your monitor reacts. 

[Bluekona]

I would love to know how you wear the Blaze on your wrist and how you keep it in place.  I have seen my Poar HR monitor reading over 165bpm after a set of heavy squats while the Blaze is less than 100!  Makes me crazy.  It has gotten to the point where I just ignore it.  

I have used athletic tap to hold it in place on my arm in the area where I think it get's the best reading and still my heart rate is off by at least 20-30 bpm.  I could not be more disappointed.

[fatass2badass]

!awesome