Garmin shows every run at 92% of max HR - How?!

Your HRM is picking up your cadence instead of your heart rate, or you max HR is higher than 220 minus age.

It is probably the watch I have an older Garmin with a wrist heart rate monitor and it’s always higher. Looking at your data it may have started to pick up you cadence at about 7 or 8 minutes in.

Are you wearing a heart rate monitor strapped around your chest? If not, get one. When you do, do a test to find your max heart rate. Than slow down if your heart rate is still that high for a easy run.

Hi, thanks, but surely this does not make sense as my cadence is in the mid 160s? If it was locking onto my cadence, would it not be matching this instead?

It's a Garmin Forerunner 45. I've tried tightening it and wearing it in different positions.

I don't really want to invest in a chest monitor just to test if the watch is correct, is there any better ways I can ascertain the watches accuracy?

Thanks for the responses. My HR for the 10k is as follows (apparently)

KM HR

1 153

2 173

3 177

4 179

5 180

6 181

7 181

8 183

9 182

10 183

try this? wrote:

Your HRM is picking up your cadence instead of your heart rate, or you max HR is higher than 220 minus age.

OP, please don’t use 220- age, it does not work beyond a gross simplification.

Self-testing (with an HRM you can trust) is much better than any generic estimate. Wrist based optical monitors (Garmin) work for me, plenty of folks find they need a strap as others suggested.

Look for odd jumps in the trace, in this case it seems to be plateauing off then suddenly jumps up. Real HRs don't do that. Even if you suddenly go up a steep hill it will take a few moments to start rising.

Hi,

From the photo I posted it doesn't seem to jump much at all - aside from when I speed up at the end, so I'm sure of what you mean here.

It's generally staying at 177-180 for the whole run.

Maybe I'll have to invest and see then! Is it possible that my max HR is just very high? If it's accurate that I spent the majority of my run at 177~, that's pretty high no?

We’re you racing? For a 10k race, that’s not a crazy profile. Pretty normal curve. If you’re just out running, it’s not varying enough, should go up and down as you hit hills and/or paces changes.

To test, just run different paces, say: 5 min HM, 5 min 10k, 5 min 5k, should see big steps in HR, which settle out between each.

Also, to confirm basic accuracy, go old school, measure your own pulse, fingers to neck or wrist, count beats for 15 sec, multiply by 4.

It was just a comfortable 10k. I didn't feel out of breath when running at all. But my pace was definitely lower in the middle than at the start and finish, so this should have been evident in my heart rate?

It does seem strangely consistent throughout the whole run everytime! I will give it a try with the old finger on the neck next time and also do some pace variations (purposefully) and see if they're visible in my HR.

After all we've seen here and ascertained that your watch isn't picking up your cadence, it's likely that both your max HR is higher than the formula predicts and that you're running a fairly high level of effort.

This is my issue though, I could have gone for double as long at that speed aerobically with no issues. So 177 seems ridiculous even with a slightly higher max HR, doesn't it?

You are either running harder than you think or you max heart rate is much higher than you think. At 25 my max was 210.

Your watch is fine but optical HR readings are garbage. If you want an accurate heart rate when running you have to use a chest strap. Just using your wrist reading will give you bogus data and isn't worth bothering with.

running_t wrote:

This is my issue though, I could have gone for double as long at that speed aerobically with no issues. So 177 seems ridiculous even with a slightly higher max HR, doesn't it?

It's higher than most people but it could be that's what your level is. I suspect you're doing a harder effort that you realize or admit.

Rather than trying to figure out your personal max HR (which is a problematic task) there's a test by Friel which you can google up. Its goal is to determine your lactate threshold heart rate and them computes HR zones based on that number. You might try that if you're interested.

If you are genuinely interested in your hr, get a chest strap. wahoo tckr for £38.

They last forever.

when you are used to a proper accurate hr reading, go back to the wrist one. Mine starts getting less and less accurate above about 160, but its fairly consistant, so i just prefer the 'calibrated' ease of the garmin watch.

i wear the chest strap for races and every now and then just to check.

Wrist HR got much better a few years ago. I see the forerunner 45 has a slightly different look from my Vivoactive 3, maybe they have improved again.

Haha I wouldn't be freaking out about it so much if I was doing a harder effort ;)

Thanks for the replies all, I think it's probably best to just invest in the wahoo tckr, use that to measure the HR and then see if it compares to the watch and if not, work out how much the watch seems to be off by. I'll also try some real pace changes during my runs to see if I can induce some swings rather than just the one steady HR throughout.

I appreciate all the responses and I'll report back in the future (if anyone cares about the result!)

Thanks

If 177bpm was 92% of your MaxHR then your max would be 193bpm.

If you were running comfortably at that HR then you would be closer to 80% which would put your MaxHR around 220bpm for your max. That seems a little high so lets say it's more like 85% which would put your max around 208bpm.

If you really want to train by heart rate you need to first get an external monitor. Some will say chest strap no matter what, but in my experience optical monitors that can go further up your arm where there's more meat under the sensor work just fine. They're just a little bit slower to respond. (Polar OH-1, Wahoo Tickr Fit)

After that you need to do a proper MaxHR test to find out what your actual max is. Otherwise you won't be working the systems you think you are during different workouts/runs. There are plenty of MaxHR test regimes floating around the internet. Some are sub-optimal, which means you won't necessarily feel like hurling at the end, but don't (IMHO) give as good a result as others.

I apologise - It was meant to be 83 not 92, fat fingers.

Thanks for the advice, I will take a look around at the sensors on offer.