Polar Heart Rate Monitor Reading Too High

For those who train with middle rate monitors frequently, you lot probably know all too well know the tell-tale sign that your little device is lying to you about your centre rate.  It starts off adequately innocently with a gentle ascension in centre rate (Hour).  Only before you know it your 60 minutes is blistering through the 150's, 160'south, and right on through the 200bpm glass ceiling.  Sometimes yous might even achieve into the mid-200's.

After you finish your activity and get back to your computer, you'll probably see something like this – a major Hr spike, followed past more normal HR activity:

Frustrated, you poke at your Hour monitor some, perhaps browse the Internets a scrap – but in full general forget nearly it, until it happens again.

Well, permit me help ya out and explain why and what information technology's doing.  And…I tin can probably fifty-fifty help ya fix information technology too!

Proper Wearing Methodology:
Let's start start with how to put the strap on.  Equally the well-nigh important affair to do is ensure y'all're wearing it correctly.  On the Garmin Ant+ straps, you'll desire to ensure the Garmin logo is correct-side upwardly, and the electrode side of the strap is confronting your bare skin.  Which side is the electrode side?  Well, the side with the footling bands, not the shiny side.  I've circled these in the pictures below:

Garmin Classic Hour Strap:

Garmin Premium HR Strap (likewise called soft Hr strap):

And for all you Polar folk, their coded HR strap:

(Small-scale side notation, as y'all may know, none of the Garmin Ant+ Hr straps will read 60 minutes underwater more than an inch or two away from the lookout man, as I showed in my 310XT review while underwater.  Withal, the T31 coded straps from Polar will work underwater with their respective Polar units – only ensure it's noted as T31 coded.  As well note that you cannot mix Polar Hour straps/units with Garmin Hour straps/units.)

Now, one last important item to note is that it goes Under your shirt against your skin.  Information technology should not be worn over your clothing.  Besides, the ANT+ folks note that from a placement standpoint "the strap is worn on the ribcage, below the pectoral muscles or breasts".

All proficient and you're notwithstanding having issues?  Onto the next section we go…

The root of all issues:
Then assuming that you've got it all correctly 'installed', allow's await at what typically causes the fasten in 60 minutes (if information technology'due south over 200bpm, it's likely not legit unless yous're a seven year old).

1) No moisture, dry air: During the winter months the air is oftentimes fairly cold, and fairly dry.  This means that you're less probable to have moist pare (due to even just peel perspiration), and even less likely to be generating any sweat correct from the kickoff of the conditioning.  This in turns lowers your conductivity power from a readings perspective.  Which, means you oftentimes become incorrect readings.  Simply introducing any moisture at all will unremarkably remedy the state of affairs – at to the lowest degree until you begin sweating enough to let that do its chore.  We'll talk most moisture additives in the side by side section.

2) Synthetic shirts (quick dry/tech shirts): While all of u.s.a. love not beingness suffocated in cotton shirts, an unfortunate side outcome is that those synthetic shirts (normally called quick dry or 'tech' shirts) produce additional static electricity buildup that messes with the readings.  This is most common when your pare and air are both rather dry out, and very little wet is present.  In almost all cases, simply applying moisture will immediately resolve this upshot.  You can endeavor rubbing the strap or your shirt with an antistatic agent – the ANT+ folks recommend simply a bounciness dryer sheet, every bit that can help in some cases.  Equally a side note, some of the Polar straps actually have an antistatic component built into them that helps to convalesce this problem to some caste.

3) Current of air on the wheel: I fairly common issue peculiarly in the jump/fall when you lot're wearing unproblematic bicycle jerseys but the wind and lukewarm air temperature keeps you relatively dry out, is that when you go downwards hills fast, or only the wind hits the right way, you'll become incorrect readings.  This is often caused when the air current funnels downwards the front of your bike jersey and either induces additional static buildup as noted before, or introduces false readings through vibrations.  I can't count the number of times where it seemed my Hour was directly correlated to how fast I was descending – despite the fact that I was working less.  In this case, your all-time bet is either getting more than gel to increase conductivity, or only twisting the HR strap around towards your side a fleck – that usually resolves is for me.  I don't recommend trying to lick the strap while descending at 40MPH…many things can get incorrect there resulting in you licking the pavement instead.

4) Electrical Interference (powerlines, railroad train lines, etc…): This isn't typically reported on the Garmin'due south, merely more than the instance on the Polar'due south.  The Polar's use electromagnetic signals to send the data from the coded strap to the watch, which can be interfered with by high tension power lines.  The Garmin's on the other hand use the 2.4Ghz frequency and don't have the power line issues typically.

The fixes:
The good news here is that in that location are a ton of easy fixes that y'all tin speedily try out to

1) Sweat: This first one is a bit obvious – but will explain why the problem frequently goes away after but a few minutes of activeness.  Once you start sweating it introduces moisture which in turn improves conductivity.  This in turn makes the HR strap happy and you get better readings.  And then basically…work harder. 🙂

ii) Licking it: This is the simplest option – and quite honestly what I do 99% of the time.  I just requite information technology a large lick.  By 'it', I hateful the two sensor pads on the back of the strap.  This will normally 'tide me over' until I start sweating enough to go on everything all happy.  And don't worry folks – a HUGE LONG thread on BT the other day confirms that anybody else does it too.  See, hither's my lick-chore:

3) Heart Rate Gel: If yous suck at licking, so you lot tin can instead use electrode gel to improve electrical conductivity.  This is what's typically used in medical situations such as an EKG where you're trying to get a better reading/electrical conductivity.  I actually use the gel mostly during the wintertime considering I've institute that many times on easy runs I'll never really produce a sweat due to the cold, and thus later a short bit of fourth dimension my lick-job (as noted to a higher place), will actually vaporize.  The HR gel is designed to last considerably longer on your skin/strap. This stuff is incredibly cheap, and the canteen will last yous a long long time.  Hither'southward my canteen I bought two winters ago:

You can pick it up usually as your local running store, or online for about $5-10.  P.S., i little tip for those cold wintertime days (I know, it's getting warmer at present though), is to stick it in a sunny window sill, that will make it overnice and warm when you lot put it against your pare:

iv) Changing the strap position: Depending on what may be causing your exact state of affairs, one option is to simply change the position.  Attempt sliding the strap to the right, left, or up/down.  Some folks even wear it on their dorsum with peachy success.  In fact, when I'm having a mean solar day with lots of issues descending on the bike and the HR being erratic – I'll only slide the strap around my side a bit, so the contact portions of the strap kinda straddle my chest and back.  Works perfectly!

v) Replacing the batteries: Finally, terminal but non least – sometimes information technology's just the batteries getting old.  You can pickup the simple coin replacement battery at about any drugstore, and even most grocery stores these days.  It only takes a few seconds to open up the back door of the strap and swap out the battery.  I usually have at least i spare battery in my tri bag at all times, just in example.

Wrap Up
Hopefully this will help you get through those pesky heart rate reading errors and go on with your workout.  If you have whatever related tips to fixing strange Hour readings, feel free to go out them below in the comments!

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Source: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/04/troubleshooting-your-heart-rate.html

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