Heart rate monitors waste time

Mellissa Zhang, Correspondent

There are many things in PE that students hate. Personally, the most annoying thing is heart rate monitors.

For one, they are so uncomfortable. The worst feeling is putting on the heart rate strap because it is freezing. Also, you have to adjust it every time you use it because it has to be tight enough that it will stay up but it also can’t be so tight that it hurts. One time I had to adjust mine and it took a solid five minutes. I had to adjust it, put it on to see if it fit right, take it off, adjust it again and so on.

The other annoying part is that they just don’t work half the time! The PE teachers always say they won’t work unless you put water on the strap before putting it on. But putting water on the strap makes it even colder against your skin and feels extremely uncomfortable. And even when you follow the teacher’s instructions, they still don’t work sometimes.
One time, we were in the fitness room downstairs and we had to get 20 minutes “in the zone.” I had a friend in that class and her heart rate monitor wasn’t working. She put water on it, she made sure it was tight enough, she did everything the teacher told her to do, but it just wasn’t working. I think the teacher gave her a zero for the day, but she didn’t deserve a zero. It wasn’t her fault that the heart rate monitor just wasn’t working. If it was working she definitely would have gotten 20 minutes in the zone.

Other times, the heart rate monitors sporadically jump in and out of working. For example, we were in the fitness room a different time and I was on the elliptical. Everything started well. I was in the zone for two minutes, but the next time I turned around to check the board, my name was gray and I wasn’t in the zone. I checked again after a minute, and my name was orange, meaning I was in the zone. My heart rate monitor kept messing up and alternating from being out of the zone to being in the zone every minute or two.

This was extremely annoying because it took me about double the time to get the full 15 minutes in the zone that I needed.

Additionally, sometimes people are working hard but the heart rate monitors say they aren’t in the zones, and other times people aren’t working that hard and the heart rate monitors say they are higher than the target zone. I think it’s really annoying when the heart rate monitors don’t count the time when you are above the zone. What if you want to push yourself? This limits people from pushing themselves because they are too worried about being in the zone.

We should not have to use heart rate monitors in our PE classes because they are uncomfortable, inconsistent when it comes to working and limiting to a person’s workout. Also, people come to PE dreading having to put them on, which ultimately puts people in a bad mood for the rest of the class and results in a bad workout.