Using Heart rate monitoring to help with pacing.

A question:

Do any of the women on here notice any difference in HR between the first and secind half of their cycle?

In particular, raised resting rate and raised average readings.

I think I'm noticing a pattern but it could be a fluke. Also, I'm using hormone medication that might be skewing what I think I'm seeing.

 

After much research & agonising, I have just bought a Wahoo Tickr Fit - didn’t like the idea of wearing chest strap for any length of time & get allergic reaction to plastic watch stamps used by Fitbit etc. This one is new: for forearm or upper arm, small device held in place by elasticated band (2 sizes). Rechargeable battery life said to be up to 30 hours, on one charge. Gives option to programme voice announcements when you go over certain HRs. Finding v helpful & informative for my husband too, so far. Saves ‘workouts’ (just use to track activity) & can email.

24 hours in seems very helpful.

 

Hi RuthT
How have you got on with your tickr?
How is it for battery life, and you can get audible alarms on it? Is that through your smartphone or does the tickr buzz?
Many thanks!

 

@RuthT - tagging you for @Stevo - his question is the post before this

 

Thanks @Skycloud, I'm not v up on forum use.
@Stevo

 

Don't worry, @Stevo. You'll get there.

 

Hi Stevo. I have found the Tickr Fit to be very good.

Battery life just over 24 hours, about 2hrs to recharge.

Can set lots of different audio alerts, spoiled for choice. I set HR zones & Burn and Burst (just below PEM zone). Is a voice from my smartphone and I can choose what is announced, but have to silence in public, but good visual display on my phone.

Has helped me monitor my HR and also is a subtle and objective way to communicate to let people know when I’m struggling & need to rest. Has helped my husband understand the challenge.

Is comfy strap - small and larger - wear on my wrist. Better for me as am allergic to lots of plastic watch straps I’ve tried.

Tbh I am quite pleased. Audio does come through when listening to iPlayer radio, but not on catch up. Have had good email support from App team, even though has not resolved that, but a small niggle.

If you want a silent buzz would have to ask the developers or chose another device.

*apols for misspelling your name first up - autocorrect...

 

Can save data to Apple Health too.

 

No worries, and I'm probably only a step ahead of you on using forums.

 

@RuthT, is a smartphone needed to use a Tickr Fit?

 

Yes, smartphone needed. And you need to keep it by you (same room) for it to log HR. The Tickr Fit doesn’t store data itself.

 

As well as providing real-time data on heart rate during activity the monitoring is also useful on a long-term basis to identify patterns. If you use Excel or Google sheets the data can be graphed and compared to your hearts content. If you also measure heart rate variability this provides another tranche of data.

Everyday I measure the amount the amount of time my heart rate is over 78 beats per minute. Attached is a graph of this data sincesince the beginning of the year. there are a number of data points for each peak and trough. The peaks are all as a result of activity, physical cognitive emotional or immune (an infection or cough / cold).

I had a cough and cold at the beginning of July and it appeared to tip me over a threshold from which it has been extremely difficult to get back into some sort of balance. A good visual of boom and bust! it has been much more difficult to maintain balance since my orthostatic problems worsened than last year.

Thankfully some improvement in the last couple of weeks, I've been lucky that I have been able to rest with very little interruptions.

 

After a little over a year of use (so out of warranty) the silicon strap has broken on my garmin vivosmart 3. So far I've been unable to find a replacement strap for sale. Garmin will refit one themselves at a cost of £70/$89US. They're currently selling this model as a sale item for £69. I feel ripped off.

I think it's worth bearing this in mind about silicon straps and doing a little research about spares when considering what to buy.

(I've also added this comment to my original post.)

 

3 fitbits in 3 years sounds annoying too and I hope the third lasts well for you, Trish. I also hope that as with many things the technology becomes cheaper as time passes.

 

There are highly rated, non-branded models on Amazon for £16-25. I bought a £22 model with 4.5 stars and it's done the trick.

 

I'll have a look, thanks @adambeyoncelowe

 

Do you have a link to the excel file? I don't have facebook account and therefore can't get access to the content of those FB groups.

 

2 weeks ago I took delivery of a vivomove HR. Nice enough smartwatch with some fitness tracking. I like it. It does have one major problem in that it electrocute me if I have the audacity to touch it whilst it's charging - little blue sparks and everything. I soon figured out just to touch the rubber bits until after it had been disconnected.

Other that that it's downsides are, display is unreadable in sunlight, well, light in general, if it's daylight I can't read it. This isn't as much of a problem as you'd think because all of it's readings are instantly viewable on a phone. second downside; it has 'awards' - it vibrates when you get one, if you have activity tracking on there seems to be no way to stop it doing it, it doesn't even pay attention to the vibration strength settings.

So, thinking that one was okay but would have to be replaced as it can't be normal to be electrocuted whenever taking it off charge I order another smartwatch.

At the time I ordered, yesterday, the vivoactive 3 was cheaper (both amazon warehouse), and more capable, whilst simultaneously being uglier, so instead of another vivomove I ordered that. As you do.

It arrived about an hour ago. I have been electrocuted twice, so it just seems to be something that smartwatches do. At least to me as I haven't found anyone else complaining of it on google.

Compared with the vivosmart it's a complicated thing, but it does have the capability so much desired, it can vibrate if your HR goes above a set value (minimum setting of that value is 100bpm). I found this out by accident, and am still currently unsure both of how to get to that setting (abnormal heart rate I know how to get to but how to set what is considered abnormal? Will have a play when I can see a bit better), I am also unsure how to stop the damn thing vibrating once it goes off, I don't know if something I did stopped it, or if it just timed out.

It isn't instant, unfortunately, and I don't know how long HR has to be above the trigger value before the alarm goes off, I've only had it for an hour or so lol

It also seems to report a higher HR than the vivomove, at least it did for the brief period I wore both at the same time - so I'll have to dig out my chest strap and find out which ones lying to me, or if my left arm genuinely does run 20bpm faster than my right.

I'll report back when I have had a week or so to play, taking it out for a walk, that sort of thing, if anyone likes this post, if not I'll assume no ones that bothered these days by HR monitors.

ETA - ignore the abnormal heart rate alert, it's useless for these purposes, HR has to be above the threshold for over 10 minutes before it goes off.

However I have managed to get the watch to alert (vibrate and put HR on screen) when I cross a HR threshold, any I choose I think, and it keeps going off every 10 seconds or so until HR drops. Which is tricky as it's quite alarming to have alarms keep going off lol

This is the first garmin watch I've got that functionality to actually work, and I briefly had a fenix 5, amongst others. They all worked when your HR dropped below a threshold, but reporting when you crossed one the other way, they didn't seem to understand it.

There is a significant difference in HR reported depending on which arm I tell it it's worn on vs which one it's actually on. Not sure why this is as it's supposed to be the same sensor and software as the vivomove and that doesn't care if the arm it's oon matches the settings.

I also suspect it's reading between 5 and 20bpm higher than the vivomove, difficult to be sure, I do know they don't agree much when looked at side by side. Of course I have no way, without rooting through boxes and draws to find my chest HR strap, to figure out which is more accurate. I do feel inclined to trust the vivomove more though, primarily coz it's giving a lower reading lol. Of course I am a little stressed right now so I don't have a good reference point to judge it on, given my diet tonight my body may not calm down for a couple of days - unlike me it hates junk food.

However, the watch does seem a little buggy, it could just be me, I'm hopeless with new tech these days, and once it's setup how much is it likely to have settings altered etc.

I was going to go for a walk tomorrow, which would have given me a clue as to how it behaves, but today has been hard going, and I've just eaten significant amounts of kebab, so it's probable I won't be going out tomorrow.

 

I’m sorry you got so many zaps but it gave me a good laugh out loud moment imagining you trying to get the charger off safely. Maybe it is a tactic to give heart rate jumps to make the monitor worth having!