Measuring heart rate while swimming

Hello everyone. I'm looking for a way to measure my heart-rate while swimming. My main requirements are (please excuse my bad english): The device has to display the heart rate while i'm swimming. I'm a newbie and need to see my heart rate during my training. Optical heart rate sensors don't seem to be very reliable under water. Thus i would prefer a non-optical device. I would like to spend under 150� if possible Thank you!I'm not a cardiologist, nor a technologist, but I set my Garmin Swim 2 first data screen on the Pool Swim mode to just display heart rate and it seems to correlate well with my super-scientific prior method (:D) of putting my fingers on my carotid and counting beats for 10 seconds. I'm sure it's not perfectly accurate, but as long as it's directionally correct, that's good enough for me.

When you say "while" do you mean mid stroke? cause for free, you can just measure your HR at the wall for a 6 second (so it's easy you just multiply the number by 10) or 10 second (so multiply by 6) count. I use the 10 second count just cause thats what my college coach had us do and all my HR zones are based off those numbers.

You really don't, especially if you are a "newbie."Let me second this and double-down: you don't even need to know your heart rate if you are an excellent swimmer. I do one test set maybe every 4-6 weeks where I measure my heart rate*. Otherwise, knowing heart rate just doesn't matter to being able to swim faster or more efficiently**. If you're looking at the most important metric to focus on, I would strongly recommend starting with counting your strokes and then working on your technique and fitness to go faster with the same number or fewer strokes. If you're looking to swim faster, the equation is simple: Speed = stroke rate x stroke length In a pool workout, with a pace clock, you can know your time and, by counting strokes, you can understand your stroke length. Check out www.swimwellblog.com/.../ for some deeper dive into some of these ideas. * Summary of Dave Salo's pulse plot test set - swimcoachhill.wordpress.com/.../ ** I've won multiple USMS National Championships in different events, so I do know a bit about swimming fast.

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I'm a newbie and need to see my heart rate during my training. You really don't, especially if you are a "newbie." If you don't swim well enough to swim along calmly at a heart rate that you know by feel to be low, you have more important swimming issues than tracking your heart rate precisely. If you just have to see the numbers anyway, a wrist-based optical sensor such as a Garmin watch or an Apple watch works well enough. I have swum with a Fossil Sport watch and a Garmin Swim 2. Both give numbers that seem close enough based on how I feel and what I know about my body, and neither costs more than your price limit.

Iâ€d need to know more of your goals and workout, but knowing your heart rate is not necessarily going to help with weight loss. There is an idea that there is a fat burning heart rate zone. That is basically where your body is able to meet your energy requirements by only burning fat. Exercising at a greater intensity doesnâ€t decrease fat burned and it greatly increases total calories burned. If you burn more calories than you eat, you will lose weight. Unfortunately, swimming increases appetite more than running does for most people.

Unfortunately, swimming increases appetite more than running does for most people.I have heard anecdotally that swimming is not great for weight loss. In addition to running, as Allen says, weight training ("dryland" in swimmer-speak) works better for more people than swimming.

Thank you for your detailed reply! What is your opinion on measuring the heart rate, when the primary goal is losing weight and not (or not yet) swimming faster?

What is your opinion on measuring the heart rate, when the primary goal is losing weight and not (or not yet) swimming faster?I am probably not the best person to answer this. I have found the principal way to control my weight is thru diet.

What is your opinion on measuring the heart rate, when the primary goal is losing weight and not (or not yet) swimming faster?I use a FitBit Charge 3. The on wrist display isn't great, but the smart phone app does a good job of graphing and reporting heart rate as well as lots of other data. Since you are swimming for fitness, your focus should be on tracking how long you in the fat burning and aerobic zones and not on point in time heart rate snapshots.