Any sort of aerobic exercise machine which has a heart-rate monitor (those metal handles you grip), at any gym, and this happens consistently on every piece of equipment I’ve used as far back as I can recall, is incapable of measuring my heart rate 95% of the time.

What happens is that I’ll grip the metal handles and “HR” will flash on the display for about 30 seconds, and either:

  1. The display will go blank.
  2. “HR” will continue to flash indefinitely.
  3. The display will track my pulse at around half of what it actually is.

I’m not sure what this means; those heart rate monitors can’t be that unreliable. Maybe it’s a conspiracy. Maybe I’m just ”abnormal”.