Scott,
Do you have a brand / model that you recommend? I’ve been training with Suunto watch or Apple watch. I haven’t noticed any irregularity but without a comparative would really have no way to know either.
Thanks for coming to the Uphill Athlete forum! We’re happy to have you here, and we look forward to answering your questions.
But… with the rise in popularity of activity trackers, wrist-based heart rate monitors are becoming more popular. We are seeing more and more forum posts with confusion about strange heart rates and inaccurate threshold tests.
The reason for the strangeness is that wrist-based heart rate monitors are useless for proper endurance training. They are neither accurate nor precise enough.
In order to start structured endurance training, you will need to use a heart rate monitor with a chest strap.
When posting in the UA forum, please only include heart rate information if it was recorded with a chest strap. Without reliable heart rate data, we won’t be able to offer any helpful advice.