Last Updated on October 1, 2022 by pg@petergamma.org
We cannot say anything against the Paper of the Swiss Federal Institute of Sports which studied the accuracy of the Polar H10 chest strap, in that sense that statements they made would be wrong.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219/
But the paper could not convince us.
It is about the idea which is behind it. If someone wants to find out about the most accurate HRM, why does he not choose the most accurate devices which is available, tested by the most qualified scientists which are available.
The Magglingen paper made manual inspections of the R-R peak, in the studies of the group of the cardiologist Milind Y. Desai, a cardiologist or a trained person made a visual inspection of the R-R peaks in real-time during a run:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6732081/
Magglingen tested the signal quality after the signal acquisition. There are also many great ECG toolboxes available to rise the quality of the ECG signals. There are many options available to increase the accuracy and the quality of the studies.
The statements made by the Magglingen papers leaves us somehow unsatisfied. Who does not expect that high-quality ECG devices are more accurate than a Polar H10 chest strap? And if this is not the case, why is this so? These questions where not answered by the Magglingen paper. But do not want most of the people an answer to this question? Which HRM is the most accurate, tested with the most accurate devices, tested by the best qualified persons, and interpreted by someone who studied and comments studies which were done previously?
In the Magglingen paper, the results of the group of the cardiologist Milind Y. Desai where ignored and not discussed, and therefore the paper is only half the truth. The rest of the truth, we tried to find out and discuss here at his place:
The simplified truth is: The Polar H10 is only gold standard for HR measuremts above 14.48 km/h, below 14.48 km/h a 3 lead ECG device is gold standard for HR measurements, this is the simplified truth, when we look at the papers of both groups. The Magglingen paper was not able to refute that a 3 lead ECG device is gold standard for HR measurement below 14.48 km/h.