Strapless Heart Rate Monitors

How's it going to take your HR? Through your wrist? It wouldn't be able to move then at all on your wrist and be pretty tight to get your pulse through there.

HRMs dont detect the physical beating of the heart, like a pulse. rather they detect the change in electrical field generated as the muscle contracts and the signalmoves throughout the heart. so, Serious, its not a dumb question.

The reason is that a normal HRM has an electrical sensor on each side of your heart (give or take) so it can detect the change in electrical field between the sensors. placing it on your wrist, the field would be too small to detect. one on each wrist might work, but wouldnt be very practical. I believe, although I could be wrong, the on-demand ones use the back of the watch and your opposite finger to complete the circuit.

You can find one of these if you look hard enough. Don't be disappointed that they won't be nearly accurate enough to be useful in training. The reason for a chest strap is that a HRM doesn't take your pulse, it takes your EKG.

actually it is your pulse. an ekg gives much more detailed information about your heart than what a HR monitor does. Pulse is simply beats per unit of time.

one more thing...just because it is using electrical impulses to do this doesnt mean that it isnt a pulse

If you want to go there, the medical deffenition (Steadmens) is: rhythmic dilation of an artery, produced by the increased volume of blood thrown into the vessel by contraction of the heart.

the pulse rate is equivelent to heart rate. pulse is a physical dilation of an artery. during CPR you can create a pulse, but the person does not have a true heart rate.

true, a HRM doesnt pick up a full EKG. it functions on the same principal and represents a dumbed down EKG, somewhat.

OK, so an all-in-one, strapless HRM/stopwatch/GPS probably doesn't exist because of the issues mentioned above with HRM on a wrist.

How about an HRM (with a chest strap) with stopwatch and GPS. Do they even make these and any preferred ones?

garmin 305

but we hate garmins.

I have owned a SEIKO Pulsemeter wrist watch since 1989. It takes my pulse directly from my wrist when I hold the "touch sensor" button down.

I guess I figured out that it must be the electrical field it was measuring, but, lets think outside the box and design one that detects acoustic signals and is smart enough to look for the rythmic pulse over "random" noise.

The acoustic signal of your pulse on your wrist is fairly strong...I am sure that someone could devise something...

why do "we hate garmins"?

throbbing pulse wrote:

why do "we hate garmins"?[/quote]

how big is yours?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=665gg72Z4bE

[quote]

7.5 inches