Heartbeat goes bananas on treadmill

[Eelco]

Hi,

There is a weird thing happening when working out on the treadmill when doing cardio exercises.

After a short while my heartbeat on my FitBit Blaze goes off the chart at 175 till 200 bmp.

I also wear a heart rate strap on my body which is connected to the treadmill (or any other cardio device). The treadmill shows me a heartbeat which is much lower. With a speed of 4 miles p/h, I normally have a heartbeat between 105 and 115. Which is in no comparison with the Blaze.

The issue only occurs on the treadmill, if using the crosstrainer for instance, my heart beat remains at a steady pace between 110 and 120 bpm. And there I can see that the strap and blaze are in sync. They both monitor the same heartbeat.

I have looked on the forums and helpmates, but I couldn't find any remarks, and I don't have nay clues what its could be.

Anyone? 

[WavyDavey]

Two things you may find helpful:

1. Try tightening the strap a notch before starting the treadmill. I get more accurate HR with a tighter band while exercising.

2. Some bluetooth devices can interfere with the HR signal, so I would try a treadmill session without the chest strap and see if that is interfering. I had a bluetooth MP3 player that wreaked havoc with my Charge 2's HR, so it may be worth checking that out.

[bbarrera]

---

@Eelco wrote:

After a short while my heartbeat on my FitBit Blaze goes off the chart at 175 till 200 bmp.

I also wear a heart rate strap on my body which is connected to the treadmill (or any other cardio device). The treadmill shows me a heartbeat which is much lower. With a speed of 4 miles p/h, I normally have a heartbeat between 105 and 115. Which is in no comparison with the Blaze.

---

Sometimes the Blaze and other optical HRMs will not find your HR and instead lock onto the next strongest signal - your steps per minute.

That doesn't seem to be the case here - if the treadmill is at 4mph, with say 2000 steps per mile, you are taking roughly 133 steps per minute (spm). The math for spm is 2000 steps * 4mph * 1hour/60minutes = 2000*4/60 = 133spm.

Definitely try moving Blaze up your wrist, ideally two fingers between the Blaze and your wrist bone.

[Eelco]

Tightening the strap will cut off the air supply 

Today I tried without the strap, some issue occurred unfortunately.

[Eelco]

I also tried to tighten the Blaze to keep it better in position, but the issue still remains

[bbarrera]

Not a lot of options... try playing around with position, say watch face on the underside of wrist.

I mainly ride a road bike and lift weights, I've tried for years to get reliable/accurate HR on my wrist while exercising. Nothing I've tried works, and chest strap doesn't bother me so thats what I continue to use because accuracy is more important to me than convenience.