How accurate are grips on a treadmill for heart rate I have cardiophob

Posted by cindycossen @cindycossen, Apr 13 7:28pm

The place where I live has a gym and I'm on the treadmill holding those hand grips and the other night a few times it went straight up to 200 heart rate and the cardiologist even said if it went that high even for a few seconds I would feel breathless or my heart pumping out of my chest at the end of my exercise it said maximum heart rate which was 108 which is what it was the whole time it didn't say the 200 so that was probably a fluke. Well tonight I was on my heart rate didn't go past 102 but then it flew to 180 and then 178 and then when it did the readout it showed 180 or 178 is my maximum so I'm freaking out here yet no symptom

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njx58 | @njx58 | Apr 13 7:45pm

My experience is that those grips are very fluky. There is no way your heart rate went to 200, or even 180. My max was 185 when I was 25 years old and a runner and racing as hard as I could.

cindycossen | @cindycossen | Apr 13 9:35pm

I would imagine even if it went up briefly like that I would feel out of breath or my heart pumping out of my chest

bitsygirl | @bitsygirl | Apr 14 10:28am

If heart rate is important to you, I'd suggest considering purchasing your own heart rate strap. They're pretty accurate I believe. You can use one to validate the other.

200 vs. 100 is a large difference. You might be able to just take a 6 or 10 second count on your wrist to see if it's out of whack. I used to take my heart rate a lot (vainly, I was so proud of my RHR. Ah, memories. 🙁 ). Eventually I could tell when it was higher than usual. I'd think you could learn to easily tell 100 vs. 200 vs. 120/130 even within a few seconds.

I'd have to guess 200 was wrong. That's really high. When I get close to my maximum, I am breathing like a freight train. But, that is only a guess. I have no medical background.

cindycossen | @cindycossen | Apr 14 12:12pm

I even called the company that's how insane I am with this kind of stuff and they said it is not an EKG it has a lot of issues but it just scared me to death.
And again if it went up to 200 even for 2 seconds I would feel my heart or breathless or something I would imagine

william66 | @william66 | Apr 19 5:05am

I wear an watch that provides my heart rate all the time, but especially when exercising. I have never used a treadmill, low or high end, that provided anything close to an accurate number. For basic info, a cheap watch will do. Reviews usually identify the inaccurate ones.