40 replies to this topic

[Danica Davison]

So, last week I got the FitBit Blaze watch for my birthday and I love this thing.  It monitors your heart rate, calories burned, steps, workouts, and other things as well.  It also connects to an app on my iPhone which gives even more details.  So, I was very excited to try this in the racecar and I got the chance to do that this weekend at Roebling Road, driving a buddy's SM in STL. After the grid gave the 5 minute warning, I started my "Workout Mode" and ended it when I came back into the paddock at the end of each session.  I think this may have lowered the average heart rate a little bit as about 5-8 min of it wasn't on track.

 

I was expecting some high heart rates and some calories burned but I wasn't expecting how high these results were:
 
Saturday Qualifying (20 min session):
Avg Heart Rate: 144
Max Heart Rate: 164
Calories Burned: 432
Time in Heart Rate Zones: 67% Cardio, 32% Fat Burn

Saturday Race (25 mins):
Avg Heart Rate: 155
Max Heart Rate: 174
Calories Burned: 815!!!
Time in Heart Rate Zones:  25% Peak, 75% Cardio

Sunday Qualifying (20 mins):
Avg Heart Rate: 140
Max Heart Rate: 170
Calories Burned: 384
Time in Heart Rate Zones: 4% Peak, 66% Cardio, 30% Fat Burn

Sunday Race (25 mins) - Note: I went off in T1 and got stuck in the sand trap for about 10 min LOL:
Avg Heart Rate:  130
Max Heart Rate:  156 Peaked when I went off
Calories Burned: 469
Time in Heart Rate Zones: 44% Cardio, 56% Fat Burn

 

I thought this would be cool to share with everyone on here.  Who says us race car drivers aren't athletes!?  I was talking to Tom Hart about it, who wears a Garmin HR monitor, and he is getting somewhat similar results. Has anyone else measured their heart rate/calories burned during your races?  I am curious to see what numbers other people are getting in their cars!  I wonder what the results would be during an enduro!

[Jim Drago]

good data.. more than I expected as well!

[Richard Astacio]

John - I get similar results with my i-watch. You be surprised how much calories you burn, having said that with the amount of racing Jim Drago does you figured he would like Stallone........

[Jim Drago]

John - I get similar results with my i-watch. You be surprised how much calories you burn, having said that with the amount of racing Jim Drago does you figured he would like Stallone........

Just doesnt make sense does it

[Steve Scheifler]

Cool, but all those devices are notoriously inaccurate with respect to calorie burn, even when your activity is exactly what it assumes you are doing. As for heart rate, probably accurate but what it calculates from that is probably not even close. Some of the increased rate is related to true cardiovascular work but a lot is adrenalin. I'm pretty sure you can't substitute roller coasters and horror flicks for a good run.

[Bench Racer]

John, have some senior driver (minimum age 75) wear your Fitbit. I'm curious.   

[Danica Davison]

Cool, but all those devices are notoriously inaccurate with respect to calorie burn, even when your activity is exactly what it assumes you are doing. As for heart rate, probably accurate but what it calculates from that is probably not even close. Some of the increased rate is related to true cardiovascular work but a lot is adrenalin. I'm pretty sure you can't substitute roller coasters and horror flicks for a good run.

 

Party Pooper

 

And yeah, I have done a little research and some studies say its inaccurate, but some more recent studies are finding its as just as good as some of the same equipment they are using to compare it to.  It would be difficult to be as accurate as an ECG monitor hooked up to your chest, but im not gonna put that in my car lol ... so I think the technology is as good as there is (right now) for a watch on your wrist to monitor these things. I am no scientist or medical professional but im sure its somewhat close, I know it isn't 100%.  Still interesting (I think)

 

I will watch the new "IT" movie coming out and let you know how many calories I burn and the heart rate

[Richard Astacio]

Cool, but all those devices are notoriously inaccurate with respect to calorie burn, even when your activity is exactly what it assumes you are doing. As for heart rate, probably accurate but what it calculates from that is probably not even close. Some of the increased rate is related to true cardiovascular work but a lot is adrenalin. I'm pretty sure you can't substitute roller coasters and horror flicks for a good run.

 

ok, understood but I know for a fact I loose 2-5 lbs every race weekend.

[Johnny D]

Be careful, don't get caught.

http://www.msn.com/e...hg7h?li=BBnbcA1

 

J~

[tLinder]

I find this stuff interesting too and shockingly there's more info on the web about HR & exercise than about SM parity  

% max HR would a metric to compare across ages.  (Mine ~65%, ~115 bpm https://youtu.be/wU3IPldlewY?t=7s

 

I'm blessed with above average running / cycling talent, (mostly a marathon runner these days), so I keep my 50+ bones in decent shape.

With that being said, (and I'm sad to report) I don't believe it really has an impact on pace behind the wheel.  Drago / Clements (no offense gents) you just don't look very athletic

 

There's PLENTY of info (and opinions) about calories / weight loss. The "common" relationship is 3500 calories burned = 1 lb loss.  If you're losing pounds during a race w/e, it's more likely due to dehydration or not eating. 

[Bench Racer]

^  

[Richard Astacio]

http://beyondtheflag...ht-during-race/

[Bench Racer]

Milwaukee, WI evening news, BEWARE, Fitbit instant fire with no warning. Burned local ladies arm. Of course, manufacturing company blabs about safety testing, maybe not enough.

[Johnny D]

Milwaukee, WI evening news, BEWARE, Fitbit instant fire with no warning. Burned local ladies arm. Of course, manufacturing company blabs about safety testing, maybe not enough.

 

http://www.wisn.com/...tracker/9550242

[Danica Davison]

I find this stuff interesting too and shockingly there's more info on the web about HR & exercise than about SM parity  
% max HR would a metric to compare across ages.  (Mine ~65%, ~115 bpm https://youtu.be/wU3IPldlewY?t=7s
 
I'm blessed with above average running / cycling talent, (mostly a marathon runner these days), so I keep my 50+ bones in decent shape.
With that being said, (and I'm sad to report) I don't believe it really has an impact on pace behind the wheel.  Drago / Clements (no offense gents) you just don't look very athletic
 
There's PLENTY of info (and opinions) about calories / weight loss. The "common" relationship is 3500 calories burned = 1 lb loss.  If you're losing pounds during a race w/e, it's more likely due to dehydration or not eating. 

 

I would agree for the most part.  But, I think it is also untrue to say that you aren't burning calories while your heart rate is that high for that long and say the only weight loss is due to water loss. It requires more energy (calories) to sustain that level of heart rate. I agree that during an average 20-40 min race in cool temperatures, physical fitness doesn't really play a roll.  However, as you are in Texas, you can understand that if you have a longer race in the hot summer, like In south Florida ... that 30 min race feels a lot longer, and has way more wear on your body.  And it is of my opinion, that being in better physical shape has a role in those conditions.

 

For example, Sebring Labor Day last year we had a 30 minute race and it had to be close to 100 degrees outside and was HUMID.  The start of the race I (25 years old) got split up from Jeff Labounty (50s yo) and Nick Malatesta (40s yo) who were running P1 and P2 I believe, and the last 10 minutes of the race ... I closed about 5-7ish second gap, caught and passed nick, and finished right behind Jeff.  When we got to impound, Jeff was bent over about to throw up, and I was more tired than I have ever been getting out of a car. None of us were using cool suits or helmet blowers.  I think some of it had to do with dehydration, but I think it is fair to say we got a hard cardio workout out of it.  I used to play college soccer, and I felt almost the same after I got out of that car as I did when I was running multiple 6 minute miles back to back.

 

So, I think your physical fitness can play a role depending on the conditions.  I am not in the greatest shape I have ever been in, but I am younger and in better shape than the older guys and they didn't drive well when they got exhausted, where as I was able to maintain the same pace.  Unfortunately, for the majors tour, all the south races are when the weather is cold/cooler down here.  If we had a July Sebring Majors, I personally don't think the older out of shape guys would last in the 40 minute races (even with cool suits).  I think the more physically fit guys can perform better at the end of a race while they are dehydrated and just had a cardio "workout".  There is a reason that these NASCAR, F1, Indy drivers workout in specific training exercises and workouts for racing. 

 

Also, I played some pickup soccer last night to compare results. I took it off after 48 minutes, but my peak heart rate was 175, and averaged 141. Even if this fitbit is slightly inaccurate to a perfectly accurate ECG monitor, it read almost the same heart rate results as I had in the car. 

[Todd Green]

I also got a Fitbit (Charge 2) this year, though mostly for climbing.  I've found that how tight you wear it on your wrist has a huge impact on what it reports.  I've had to wear it fairly loosely to get anything that is close to accurate.  When I had it tight during climbing I was getting peaks that were under what I got while walking. Heh.  My theory is that circulation was getting cut off when you got pumped (even though it was never painful nor affected my climbing performance, so it wasn't like it was a tourniquet.)

 

Anyway FWIW:

 

Running: 134 avg 178 peak (~2 mile run ~6 minute/mile pace, way out of shape for me the graph just keep climbing the whole time)

Racing: 109 avg 129 peak (Been doing this for 20 years, not all that exciting anymore in our region. I think I can drive our track blindfolded by now.)

Climbing 122 avg 160 peak (This includes rests between routes.)

 

To be fair, I hurt my knee last year climbing so that was the first run I'd done in ages.  I also lose weight during the weekend, but that is partly from not having time to eat and mostly from dehydration (despite chugging water every chance I get.)  If you notice you put (most of) it right back on in the next day or two, it is probably water loss (which is my case).

 

I think the only way you're going to know for sure about the accuracy is to borrow/wear a known good chest monitor at the same time and compare.

 

I'll tell you that for sure the sleep monitoring is *way* off for me.  Unless I'm up and walking it still thinks I'm sleeping.  Even if I'm working on my notebook in bed.  Or I push a button on the watch, or swing my arm wildly (did that just for a test).  Put in a feature request for that (button push == awake), but they don't seem to be too terribly responsive.

[bvondran]

This is a great topic. Since I started running and tracking my exercise 18 months ago, I've been wanting to figure out a way to log my heart rate with my Traqmate during race sessions, but haven't found a suitable solution.

Fast forward to today and I recieved an email from Race Technology that they have a new HR monitor available. http://race-technolo...rt-rate-monitor

It's rather pricey and no idea if it could work with the Traqmate, but it sure would be nice to have something like this available for us Traqmate users.

Brian

[powerss]

So, last week I got the FitBit Blaze watch for my birthday and I love this thing.  It monitors your heart rate, calories burned, steps, workouts, and other things as well.  It also connects to an app on my iPhone which gives even more details.  So, I was very excited to try this in the racecar and I got the chance to do that this weekend at Roebling Road, driving a buddy's SM in STL. After the grid gave the 5 minute warning, I started my "Workout Mode" and ended it when I came back into the paddock at the end of each session.  I think this may have lowered the average heart rate a little bit as about 5-8 min of it wasn't on track.
 
I was expecting some high heart rates and some calories burned but I wasn't expecting how high these results were:
 
Saturday Qualifying (20 min session):
Avg Heart Rate: 144
Max Heart Rate: 164
Calories Burned: 432
Time in Heart Rate Zones: 67% Cardio, 32% Fat Burn

Saturday Race (25 mins):
Avg Heart Rate: 155
Max Heart Rate: 174
Calories Burned: 815!!!
Time in Heart Rate Zones:  25% Peak, 75% Cardio

Sunday Qualifying (20 mins):
Avg Heart Rate: 140
Max Heart Rate: 170
Calories Burned: 384
Time in Heart Rate Zones: 4% Peak, 66% Cardio, 30% Fat Burn

Sunday Race (25 mins) - Note: I went off in T1 and got stuck in the sand trap for about 10 min LOL:
Avg Heart Rate:  130
Max Heart Rate:  156 Peaked when I went off
Calories Burned: 469
Time in Heart Rate Zones: 44% Cardio, 56% Fat Burn
 
I thought this would be cool to share with everyone on here.  Who says us race car drivers aren't athletes!?  I was talking to Tom Hart about it, who wears a Garmin HR monitor, and he is getting somewhat similar results. Has anyone else measured their heart rate/calories burned during your races?  I am curious to see what numbers other people are getting in their cars!  I wonder what the results would be during an enduro!

What are you using to do the data analysis for Fitbit? I can see graphs on the smartphone app and can see peak heart rate but I have not seen Average HR anywhere.

Steve

[av8tor]

So DS says racing Spec Miata is like "Motocross with a cage"  I would like to see him on a moto X track.  Now John D. says "Spec Miata racers are athletes" Oh boy...

and I thought I would take up a little old lady hobby of SM racing, now I find out I am a Moto X blasting panty dropping jock.   

[av8tor]

danny steyn