Morning all.
In the recent hot weather on a couple of occasions walking in town and riding I’ve suddenly had my heart go into overtime.
I’m sort of used to it and as long as it doesn’t get much above 170 I’m chilled about it, sit down in the shade and drink water until it all drops.
Ive been wearing my Garmin HR watch more lately as I like to check resting heartrate as a basic guide to general health.
It’s been a bit high lately but seems to be dropping as the heat and alcohol levels drop. One thing that does intrigue me is that when I’m sleeping my heartrate seems about 10bmp higher than when I wake up. Any ideas?

Slightly high due to high temps etc I wouldn’t worry about. Suddenly racing for no good reason, I’d be seeing a doctor (and I’m usually a bit blasé about people posting on here about things that sound trivial).

Had covid recently?

Mine went upto 65 when I was ill, now dropped back down ~48. But goes upto 105 just doing mundane things like brushing my teeth!

170’s a different matter though. Do you feel it, or could it just be a glitch in the watches measurement?

or could it just be a glitch in the watches measurement?

I don’t wear my watch that often but noticed a few weeks ago my HR after a quick walk was 170+ and resting HR was about 95.

I put my wife’s watch on my other wrist and it gave much more sensible readings of around 50.

A factory reset of the watch sorted it out and confirmed I wasn’t actually about to explode.

or could it just be a glitch in the watches measurement?

My Polar Vantage watch went weird and was replaced under warranty. The optical HR reading was slowing climbing higher and higher over weeks….

Oh I feel it alright.
Had heat stroke in Cuba a couple of times and a couple of years ago twice on hot days mountain biking of the SS.
It was my 69th birthday Saturday so a I do worry a bit more about it. I’ve always had a hummingbird heart thing going on though.
This was my second bike ride (first with a Garmin) after I decided to get a bike to ride to work on.

Oh, and Ill try the reset idea too.
Thanks.

One thing that does intrigue me is that when I’m sleeping my heartrate seems about 10bmp higher than when I wake up. Any ideas?

My lowest HR in the night is always just before I wake up….

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2hcS6Ao]Polar Flow iPhone App Daily HR[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

As for your HR suddenly jumping, could be SVT: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/supraventricular-tachycardia-svt/

A guy I ride with gets this occasionally and has to get off the bike and wait 5-20 mins for it to calm down, then he continues with the ride. The cardiologists on the ride (we normally have a few) keep recommending an Ablation (procedure to correct it, which they happen to specialise in).

Alcohol really affects mine. Resting HR is usually between 50 and 58. 2 pints of 5% cider at about 5pm and my HR sits at 80 till around 3am.

It’s the drop in rate after waking that confuses me. Am I sleep jogging? Or worse- sticking “Vote Tory’ leaflets through neighbours’ letterboxes in a fugue state?

as above alcohol really impacts mine, also if you wear your watch asleep then average HR will be much lower than if you only wear it in the day time.

Always sceptical about the accuracy of the wrist based HR monitors. A strap is far more accurate so I would borrow one just to try to confirm.

HR rates are personal so comparing numbers themselves is meaningless, my resting rate is around 30-33 which is low (I have ran competitively for over 40 yrs (that doesn’t mean particularly quickly BTW!!) and my maximum now is only around 160. The key is understanding what is unusual for you. I would see the GP just to get it checked out.

Second the Covid shite from Spoony up there^. Mine’s running at +20-25 over what’s normal for me post Covid and it feels like when a head cold gets on yer chest because you insisted on keep playing out…

Always sceptical about the accuracy of the wrist based HR monitors. A strap is far more accurate so I would borrow one just to try to confirm.

Me too.

I tested my Forerunner 245 against a Garmin Chest strap. To see about this. HR recording was really quite close in terms of BPM, but there was some lag from the wrist. I’m not too bothered about that though – I’m no pro athlete where split second recording matters.

It does depend on the individual and circulation though. My friend tried the same and found them pretty much the same for running, but the wrist was a bit off for riding.

Over time I think Garmins and Apple watches get to know you and are reasonably accurate, but with a HR of 170 by just walking into town, I’d be making an appt to see my GP.

Over time I think Garmins and Apple watches get to know you and are reasonably accurate,

The Apple watch has two modes, the basic is a standard optical heart rate sensor which are so, so. But the newer models can do an ECG and record a proper trace of your full heart beat. You can even email it, from the watch, direct to your cardiologist as a colleague of mine used to do whenever his heart was miss-behaving.

Water can make the sensor read funny, presumably sweat as well. Mine was showing 170 after a surf, a quick manual check showed it was about 100 at the time.

Always sceptical about the accuracy of the wrist based HR monitors. A strap is far more accurate so I would borrow one just to try to confirm.

I’ve used them in parallel a couple of times, just to check accuracy. They’re pretty much identical. Probably depends on how tight the wristband is and what sort of terrain is being ridden though?

Water can make the sensor read funny, presumably sweat as well. Mine was showing 170 after a surf, a quick manual check showed it was about 100 at the time.

I wear mine swimming. I see nothing suspiciously abnormal.

I’ve worn both strap and optical while cycling and the optical recorded much higher HRs during harder bits of the ride. They optical sensors have to do a lot of averaging as they are inherently more noisy, so will average out short peaks and troughs. A chest strap just gets each beat fairly noise free.

EDIT – that should have read the chest strap recorded higher HRs.