I think my new Polar F11 is lying to me...

Spent all weekend excited to use my new Polar F11 (which everyone on CC seems to rave about). Double checked my user settings:

height, gender, dob, weight, and tested my resting heart rate when I woke up this morning (and it said my own index result was 54).

I've just come back from a Body Attack class at the gym and my watch says that I burned 620 cals in one hour, and my average heart rate was 199.

I don't believe any of it.

What have I done wrong??

Why don't you believe it?

Edit:  620 calories burned in a hour of vigorous exercise seems reasonable and you can't compare heart rate info with anyone else since it is specific to you so I guess we need more info. 

I work out 4 days a week for 1-2hours. 

I've been going to the gym and running for a year now. I can't understand why my heart rate is so high. Plus, I thought that if I'd been doing that much exercise for quite a while now that I would not be burning as many calories as that, I thought it would be 400 max?? I'm also only 112lbs, I thought lighter people burned less calories?

Anyone ???

Haven't you ever checked your pulse while working out?  What was your perseved level of effort during the workout? 

Well I thought that was the heart rate monitors job...? I mean, 199 makes my HR% 99%.

I was working my butt off doing it!

How do you know that 199 is 99% MHR if this is the first time you've worn a HRM and you've never check your pulse during a workout before?

If you were working you butt off then you probably burned a lot of calories.

You can get more info on Heart Rate Training here if you're interested.

Well I know its 99% because thats what the HRM told me. Hence why I got all worried in the first place.

Thanks for the link though.

The % is based on a standardized formula, and will be off to some degree for every real person.

You should get yourself worked up (run around the block hard once or twice) with the HRM on and when your heart rate registers really high count it yourself and compare. Ta-da!

'Body Attack' doesn't sound like a walk in the park... I'd entirely believe it that your heart rate was up there in the high numbers, and your calorie burn reflects your exertion. I'd do a simple test - take your pulse the old fashioned way while you are resting, then after five minutes of light activity, and then after five minutes of busting your butt, and then you'll have more idea of what it actually is and you'll know if you have the watch set properly.

A heart rate of 199 means you would have really been huffing and puffing. I use Polar HRM's for both running and biking. Once I was on a ride and my heart rate showed 200. As it turned out, a guy near me had the same HRM and they were on the same frequency, which isn't supposed to happen. You may have been picking up someone else's heart rate in between your own beats. The calorie burn sounds about right, though, so it may not be incorrect at all. I agree with the other gentleman who suggested actually counting your pulse while checking it against the HRM.

Average 199? That has to be an error.

I have a polar F11 and just want to suggest or ask did you do the fitness test as well as entering your stats??  Its very important on the F11 to do the fitness test as well to get a better accurate calorie burn.

As far as the high heart rate that could have been a glitch.  I find if I walk in an area where someone has a ham radio tower my HRM goes haywire- Also if the electrodes aren't conneccted or resting correctly on your chest or have too little or too much moisture they mess up.  If I wear any thing other than a sports bra ( especially an underwire) my HRM messes up as well.  Sometimes I flat line alot sometimes it says I did 299.

Make sure the strap is resting properly right under the breast or right at the xiphoid process * the bony protusion right at the base of your rib cage.

199 is an insane average!  I have peaked at 199 on many occasions (with my Polar F6) but never an average!  As  the previous poster said, be sure and do the fitness test as specified by that model, then get back to us.

MJ

199 is a relatively reasonable MAX for a BodyAttack class if you MHR is >200, but I will never believe it was an average. I've seen 194 as a max on mine after a particularly crazy set of power lunges. And generally I hit 184-188 as a max (I've been doing BodyAttack 2/3 times a week for 7-8 months, so I have a large dataset for my stats).

dbackerfan has good suggestions. The strap must be moist and should be pressed to the skin all the time. Mine acts up sometimes when I fail to wash the actual transmitter (where it's connected to the strap) properly. I think that salt from the sweat accumulates there and loosens the contact.

Thanks guys. In my original post I did say I'd done the fitness test (where I got my own index number), so I know thats not the problem. I went to Body Combat yesterday though and the numbers were a lot better - around 170-180. But, I had no where near as much of a workout as I do in Attack. I will maybe wait until I do the class again. 

Cheers again folks!

One last thought:  I bought a Polar F11 this Summer.  It replaces an M32.  I have worn them together on several workouts.  The only difference is the calorie count.  The M32 appears to disregard base metabolic calories so the F11 gives me consistently higher readings.  But the heart rates match and when I have checked my pulse, as other have suggested here, the pulse count matches the HRM reading.  Now I have had some crazy readings on the M32.  They seem to relate to RF interference in the vicinity.