Brady Holmer

Yeah, I think the accuracy of the smartwatches is obviously there.

They've been, you know, validated against EKG and things like that.

But

as Levine mentioned, and as others have kind of drawn caution, they tend to get less accurate as the intensity of exercise increases.

They're not perfect, because you know, it's getting your heart rate reading from a sensor on your wrist versus your chest.

So I would encourage everybody to invest in a heart rate chest, you know, a chest strap monitor, it's less than $100 investment, it's going to give you

a lot more accurate data.

Some people find them uncomfortable, but most of them now are pretty comfortable.

And if you really want to train using heart rate, I would say invest in the chest strap.

But you know, the watches aren't totally off and they can be used as a good kind of reference as to where you are.

But like I said, in my experience, and I think the experience of others, the harder that you go, the higher the intensity goes, kind of the less accurate that they get.

Um, so if you want to use heart rate, great, it can be a good indicator, but, um, the talk test is a very good, I think, way to assess your exercise intensity, especially for people who are newer.

So I think one of the, not flaws with RPE, but one of the caveats is that you need a little bit of experience to really know where you're at, like how hard something is.

I mean, if somebody has never actually gone to a maximal intensity, um,

And how do you know what a 20 out of 20 is if you've never really reached the point of volitional exhaustion?

So if somebody is just beginning to exercise, they might be at 70% of their maximal intensity, but they might think that they're at a 20.

So it takes time to learn kind of what your RPE is to be able to assess that accurately.

So I would say, you know, if people are more experienced with exercise, then you could use something like RPE to kind of gauge your intensity.

But those newer to exercise might actually have a lot of good feedback with the talk test.

I even kind of use that.