maximum heart rate

[danckel]

Hi,

There seems to be something weird with my maximum heart rate in microsoft health.

Under the comparisons, it lists my maximum heart rate as 150. The band regularly registers and records a heart rate over 180. So does anybody know what is going on here?

This is microsoft's explanation, which doesn't seem to square with my own experience:
Max heart rate
The Health app predicts your maximum heart rate based on your age and uses it to generate personalized heart-rate training zones. Your max heart-rate value adapts to you. If you consistently exceed your predicted value, your max heart rate will increase.

Any thoughts by anyone on this one?

Best,

Danckel

Here are some screen shots:

 

[jsooney]

I don't think the heart rate sensor is very accurate at all. There have been many comments about its inaccuracy. In my experience I find it to be 10-20BPM off for much of the time, and occasionally finds the correct rate for a brief time. I think it offers a general guideline at best.

 

[gwinegarden]

The band is, definitely, susceptible to big spikes, while exercising, but it seems very accurate at other times. It just has problems with elevated heart rates. Now, a big test, of the band, and others, found that the band was the most accurate on average heart rate.

 

[danckel]

well, i did this exercise on a stationary bicycle with its own heart monitoring and this went over 180 as well as at many other occasions.

but i am just trying to make the point that the maximum heart rate as reported by microsoft health is totally ludicrous in my case. it says 150, where i ask my stationary bicycle to keep me at a constant heart rate of 155, which the band 2 then actually also records. so what is up with the health website to think that my max heart rate is 150‽

i am just wondering whether anyone else has similar experiences or whether this is just happening to me. i am a bit puzzled because nobody has raised this rather obvious issue before and it is not like that people hold back on pointing out flaws with the band 2...

but that is just my two cents.

best, danckel

 

[Nate Silver]

It may take some time for the reported max hr to adapt, or possibly it isn't as 'adaptable' as MS health says. They do say 'if you consistently exceed your predicted value...', so you just might not have hit that threshold yet. I'm not really sure, but I am sure that max hr calculated by age can be pretty inaccurate in many cases, depending on fitness level, medications, etc.

 

[danckel]

Thanks Nate, very nice of you to reply to my thread; I always much liked your comments and discussions and I am happy you are still sticking to the Band 2. I was positively surprised with the BBC test as reported on the thread http://forums.windowscentral.com/mi...d-2-most-accurate-fitness-tracker-tested.html I seem to have the same experiences as you about the erratic heart rate monitoring of Band 2 in comparison to Band 1. I am slowly getting worried that the accurateness of these fitness trackers are very person-specific. What is accurate for you may not be accurate for me. In other words it is all very idiosyncratic. (But after wearing the Band 2 for some time, I don't want to go back to the clumpy Band 1)

Now my worry concerning my ludicrously low max heart rate of 150 as reported by by MS Health is that many formulas for computing, for instance, calorie expenditures take in the personal max heart rate as an important input variable. If MS Band is doing too and it uses the wrong max heart rate then I get really worried. Any thoughts on that one?

Best, Danckel

 

[jsooney]

I know one common formula for max heart rate in BPM is to subtract your present age from 220. Don't know how old you are but you do obviously.

Also, from an unrelated website, "According to the American Heart Association, your target zone ranges between 50 and 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. For a person who's 40 years of age, this target zone is between 90 and 153 beats per minute. Keeping your heart rate within this range ensures your workout intensity is high enough but not too high to put strain on your heart". It might be that MS is being conservative in what it considers max heart rate.

One other thing, I don't know exactly what they mean by "peak heart rate". I'm not sure if they mean that's your recommended maximum, or that's the highest it has measured. One page shows where you can export your stats in CSV format and it lists this as one of the fields:
HR_Peak -The peak heart rate recorded during this activity.

In that case it sounds like it is the peak measured during exercise. That doesn't make much sense as you are seeing rates as high as 180 though. Maybe it throws out spikes when it does its calculations or something.

 

[poit57]

I never really paid much attention to that comparison chart. Mine shows that my peak heart rate is 156 compared to the average for my age & gender at 157. However, most of my running records a peak of anywhere from 170's to 190's depending on the workout. With the original Band, I ran a half marathon last April, and my peak heart recorded was 193 with an average of 177. This past Saturday with my Band 2, I ran 9 miles with a peak of 189 and an average of 158.

I don't really know what the Peak in the comparison chart means. I don't feel like it has been affecting my calorie burn calculations based on my daily activity or my recorded workouts, but I really don't have any other gear to compare the measurements with.

The only other HR monitor I've ever used is a chest strap from Adidas miCoach. That thing was very inaccurate for resting heart rate, always measuring in the mid 70's when it was usually high 50's or low 60's, but the heart rate during exercise was actually much closer to the Band.

 

[danckel]

Well, I am definitely no marathon runner. And if a marathon runner's max heart rate is reportedly 156 then I still feel pretty good with 150. Yet as of today the MS Health Dashboard now reports 149. Oh bummer and I did not even have my birthday... So that show me that they certainly don't do the 220 minus age thing, which would give me 175 by the way...

Anyways, I should probably not take this max heart rate too seriously whatever it means. But it remains puzzling why MS reports it. But perhaps jsooney is right and it is my recommended max heart rate for cardio exercises. Would just be good if MS explained this to me.

Best , Danckel

 

[danckel]

Okay, I am now getting more worried:

I did some testing and it seems to me that the band uses the max heart rate somehow to cap/distort the measurement. I used a stationary bicycle with its own heart rate monitor, which i initially set to take me to a hr of 165. The band 2 pick ups the heart rate rather late (almost a 10min delay) but then follows it quite closely. Later in the exercise I increased the heart rate target to 180 and while the stationary bicycle increases the exercise level and took me to up to 185, the heart rate as measured by the band went DOWN! Then taking down the level of the exercise, the band's heart comes UP again (while the hr reported by the bicycle goes down)! It seems to me that the band checks back with the max heart rate it has on me and if the discrepancy is too big, it seems to conclude that its reading can't be right and starts doing something weird. Then when the heart rates comes down, the band thinks that its measurement is correct again and picks it up again., The following chart show this happening twice:



Has anyone seen a similar behavior?

Best, Danckel
.

 

[danckel]

Interestingly, MS Health now tells me my max heart is 167.



So checking my first post on this, it went up from 150 to 167 within a month...