NWR Fitness monitor gadgets/heart monitors and running

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Thom Blach

Location
London
Thinking about people I have known over the years it seems to be a trade-off between skeletal structure, which gets worn out by years of heavy exercise, and offal, which becomes fatigued by its lack.
 
Alex Lake

Alex Lake

Location
Deep South of Cambridgeshire
Just jumping onto the back of this thread, I've been doing a bit of cycling recently - mostly in an effort to improve general fitness, core strength and perhaps shed a few pounds.
I use Strava running on an iPhone attached to the bike, which seems to do a decent job, but I'd be very curious to know more about how many calories I'm really burning (I know that the answer is always "not as many as you think"). I'm told that Strava will massively over-estimate this unless you have a HRM.

I don't want to get into power meters built into cranks or anything like that, but if I could spend < £100 to get a more accurate idea of calorie consumption, that would be fun.

Any suggestions? Maybe a wrist-mounted HRM that talks Bluetooth to the iPhone? I'd rather avoid something around my chest.
 
Alex Lake

Alex Lake

Location
Deep South of Cambridgeshire
Russell Faulkner said:
Chest is the only accurate way to measure HR really.
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Seriously? All we're talking about here is pulse, right? If watches can't do that, why are they getting away with claiming that they can?!

Edit: Just done some Googling and I see what you mean. I think Mark is right! ;-)

I reckon I'll just have to see how quickly I can do a fixed route as a test of my fitness level. Who really cares about calories anyway.... So Tom's also right. As usual.
 
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Leon Marks

Leon Marks

Location
London
You can buy a decent heart rate monitor strap for 30. Fwiw I think that wrist based monitors are a lot better now - certainly the testing I’ve done shows very little disagreement.

with that said - what do you want the calorie measurement for?
 
R

Russell Faulkner

Location
Bordeaux
Optical can’t match electrode.

The relevent question is does that matter for you.

My son just bought a Garmin Forerunner 45 for €120. I wouldn’t go any cheaper than that and it has GPS so you don’t need to use the phone
 
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Russell Gammon

Location
Loughton, Essex
Another vote on here for anything Garmin-based, and the entry level models have a good blend of value vs functionality.

Running with a phone is infuriating, and whilst an Apple Watch is a great all-rounder (I wear one every day), they lack the specific functions if you end up taking running seriously (but appreciate this isn’t the goal of everyone!)

For music, I can’t recommend bone conductor headphones enough. Sound quality is so much better than you’d imagine, with the bonus that you can still hear oncoming traffic etc if running near roads. They also are allowed in races (regular headphones tend not to be), if that’s your sort of thing. I use the Aftershocks brand ones; I’m sure there are others.

Heart rate monitors - having switched to a chest strap 6 weeks ago vs in-built watch HR (both Garmin and Apple), it makes a small but noticeable difference, I’ve found.

Anyway, 3 weeks to go until the London marathon is done and I can get back to drinking. Roll on 3rd October!!
 
Filippo Nanni

Filippo Nanni

Location
London, England
The reference around this for reviews is DC Rainmaker. Look him up.

It depends on what you use it for. If you need basic running GPS watch get the LEAST expensive Garmin. In my experience all the data you need at the beginning is there (*). If you run long and altitude is to be monitored then you need to move up the ladder (not much). Re heart rate: if you need a precise heart rate, you need a strap (now some come with ECG functionality) if you need ballpark a wrist sensor can do.

FYI I find difficult to sleep with my Garmin (40mm Fenix 6 Sapphire) but I don't care much to know how bad I sleep.

Anything you need just PM.

(*) = There are options with Music. As somone who started running with wired headphones and IPods, the freedom of having music in your watch delivered to your wireless earphones (Jaybird Vista or Bose Earbuds Sport) is invaluable
 
billnanson

billnanson

Location
Johnny Foreigner
Russell Gammon said:
Running with a phone is infuriating, and whilst an Apple Watch is a great all-rounder (I wear one every day), they lack the specific functions if you end up taking running seriously
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Well, I took it pretty seriously in my youth (over 35 years and a sub 1:10 half-marathon ago) and that was with just a Casio or Timex on my wrist, a 3.5 inch to a mile map (at home!), some thread and a ruler to calculate the distance and a calculator (Casio again!) that did degrees so you could calculate hours and minutes per mile directly - it seemed that I had everything!
The only thing that I find (mildly) infuriating about my phone (with Strava) is when once in 100 runs it loses the signal and you suddenly find you've run faster than world-record pace for a mile and a straight line appears on your strava course map - I delete those because people will just think I used a bike to attain a ridiculously fast time - as I assume with others' personal bests under 3:30 per mile ;-) On the other hand, my little zip-up waist-belt is perfect for the phone, an any weather, and I have the ultimate safety device should I need it - though that really translates into - please come and pick me up from xyz, it's too hot to continue, or my knee hurts.... delete as appropriate :)
 
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Russell Gammon

Location
Loughton, Essex
Two things specifically that most Garmin’s do better than Apple watches or phones:

- Maps/GPS. I can pick a loop run from my house, through some lovely (and less lovely) local countryside, send it to my Garmin and leave the house. Like a SatNav, it just tells me where to turn. Much nicer than having to stop and get a phone out every 5 minutes, if you want to explore new routes.
- Interval or other training. Program a plan into your phone, upload to watch, watch then manages all the training requirements from there.

I appreciate these are probably more than is required by the every day runner, but once you catch “the bug” it’s a very easy addiction to get into (somewhat like wine…)

Kudos on the 1:10 half, that’s some going!!
 
S

Sean Hardon

Location
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Alex Lake said:
Just jumping onto the back of this thread, I've been doing a bit of cycling recently - mostly in an effort to improve general fitness, core strength and perhaps shed a few pounds.
I use Strava running on an iPhone attached to the bike, which seems to do a decent job, but I'd be very curious to know more about how many calories I'm really burning (I know that the answer is always "not as many as you think"). I'm told that Strava will massively over-estimate this unless you have a HRM.

I don't want to get into power meters built into cranks or anything like that, but if I could spend < £100 to get a more accurate idea of calorie consumption, that would be fun.

Any suggestions? Maybe a wrist-mounted HRM that talks Bluetooth to the iPhone? I'd rather avoid something around my chest.
Click to expand...
I look at it and cut it in half to get an accurate reading and that's with a Garmin 820. It shows me burning around 40 calories a km, which I think is ludicruous. (Probably because I refuse to wear a heart monitor). I work on the basis of 50km gets me a bottle of wine. But I'm carrying 83kg so I will burn more.

Hill work on the bike is where you really shed the calories. There's a friend who loves doing the 312, he's presently "everesting" to get in shape for it as he hasn't got time to do big rides. Personally I think a combination of hill work and flat really pays dividends.
 
A

Alex Hills

Location
London
billnanson said:
The only thing that I find (mildly) infuriating about my phone (with Strava) is when once in 100 runs it loses the signal and you suddenly find you've run faster than world-record pace for a mile and a straight line appears on your strava course map - I delete those because people will just think I used a bike to attain a ridiculously fast time - as I assume with others' personal bests under 3:30 per mile ;-)
Click to expand...
Yes the Strava specials have gifted me a couple of world records too...

I just got a Coros - largely just to not be another person getting a Garmin - watch, which seems to basically do the job fine although the heart rate readings seem especially inaccurate at the lower end. The rates track exertion accurately, though, so it must be doing something. It produces very over-optimistic 'AI' (which seems to mean anything that uses data in an adaptive way these days) estimates for how fast I can run and how good my training is for me...
 
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