I’m 40, and as I have said in other topics, I have taken up running. I bought a Timex watch that checks ones pulse. I expect it isn’t the most accurate thing, but still…
I was at the drug store, and they have a sit down self-administered blood pressure and pulse measurement machine. It tells me my pulse is ~65.
This watch reads my pulse as being 90 when I am standing, and 84 sitting down. I alternated testing with it and with the drug store machine. 60s on the machine, 90ish with my watch.
My folks were at the store with me. Mom is 62 and dad is 65 years old. The store machine reports their pulses as being in the 60s range. They are fairly healthy people.
So I got my parents to check my watch. My watch reads their pulses as being in the 60s! In agreement with the drug store machine.
2 tests on each machine were done with each control subject, and 3 on the test subject.
I guess I can go run my ass off tomorrow, and it if reads a pulse of 210, I know its consistently 30 points high for me. I walked today on rolling paved terrain and it read my pulse as 113-122, which just straddles the low end of my optimal training range, which seems right for a hard walk. It wasn’t a relaxed effort, but it wasn’t hard either.
I don’t understand why there would be such a discrepancy in the tests, except for a difference in my skin conductivity.
Muscles in your arm … you have a mans muscles.
Your parents have menopauslal muscles.
Your muscles are heavy and toned enough to cause the noise in the artery to vary.
The watch works off sound.
When you use a stethascope and sphygamanometer to do your blood pressure, you can hear the differences that the pressure makes… thus proving the pressure causes different noises.
Instructions for blood test… sit down… to relax the muscles.
What’s your resting heart rate measured with the old-fashioned finger-on-pulse method?
Does your watch really measure your heart rate at the wrist? If that is the case you should go for an inexpensive running watch using a chest strap instead.
It measures at the wrist. To activate the test I touch a finger on my opposite hand to a metal contact on the watch, completing a circuit through my body.
I cant measure my own pulse accurately. My attention back-feeds and my pulse speeds up. I just tried and it reached 20 beats in 15 seconds or 80+ over one minute. I doubt it would go much higher since I am not actually doing anything.
If I were doing something, I cannot see it climbing higher. For instance, my afternoon walk was about 4-5 km/h and my pulse measured 113-122 by the watch. That seems reasonable for light exercise. The low end for my exercise target zone starts at 117.
I have peculiarities with sensory phenomena. I hyper focus according to a work place psychologist. For example, if I listen to you talk while I eat, I wont notice how delicious my sandwich is. Or vice versa.
But your comment just solved the mystery I think. I tried my watch with my eyes closed and it measured my pulse at 65.