Heart Rate Measurements

Most recent answer: 10/22/2007

Q:
Can you explain how you check your heart rate Accurately when playing soccer?
- Rachel (age 12)
Omaha NE
A:
Well, many usual ways to measure heart rate involve looking at a watch -- you can hold two fingers gently on an artery on your neck, just so you can feel the pulses, or on your wrist, and count the pulses during a minute of time. This usually involves stopping playing soccer for a minute, and your teammates might want you to keep playing instead of checking your heart rate all the time.

A solution to this is a heart rate monitor which is the size and shape of a wristwatch and you wear it the same way. You can probably get it at sporting goods stores. These measure the pulses on arteries in your wrist and read out a digital number that is constantly updated, so you don’t have to pause to make the measurement. You might get some kind of running average heartbeat rate over the last minute or so.

Tom

(published on 10/22/2007)