A Different Take on How to Use a Heart Rate Monitor for an Avid Sports Fan

By Chris Merritt Professional sports. We all know them. Some people couldn’t care less. Then on the opposite side - there are people like me. Words like ravenous, obsessed, immersed, fixated are just a few used to describe people like me - especially during football season. My life during football season feels like I am living literally Sunday-to-Sunday. I go to bed watching the postgame interviews with coaches and quarterbacks and scour the sports media for any mention of my team. I am a die-hard Denver Broncos fan. I was born in Colorado and my father raised me to be a Broncos fan. This got interesting when we moved to New England when I was just five years old. My earliest football memory is watching my father screaming at the TV when Denver was annihilated by Joe Montana’s 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV in 1990. At the age of seven I didn’t quite grasp what was happening, and all could do is wonder why my father was so upset. As I grew up I became an avid sports fan during high school and college. During my college days I went to school just outside of Boston. This was a time when the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl three out of my four years there. Most people would have had this be motivation enough to become part of the hype. I saw this happen with football non-fans and lukewarm fans of other teams, but I held strong and stuck to being a Broncos fan. Throughout this time the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts developed a major rivalry. The rivalry was primarily between Colts quarterback Peyton Manning and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Both dominated the game in ways that will surely leave them on a short list of greatest quarterbacks of all time. Four years ago, after sustaining and recovering from a major neck injury, Peyton Manning signed with the Denver Broncos. His presence made them an immediate contender for a world championship. I was beyond excited that all of a sudden my team was now a perennial contender. What I didn’t think about was how this would affect my friendships with all my closest friends in New England. The rivalry between the quarterbacks carried over to Peyton’s new home in Denver. Since Peyton’s arrival there has been at least one game against the Patriots each season. In the days leading up the game I am reminded by all of my friends in New England about the rivalry and a have learned to expect a good deal of smack talk to be coming my way. This brings us to this past weekend. With a trip to the Super Bowl the Patriots were coming to Denver. The Patriots were favored despite being on the road. With a lot of grief on the line and my devotion to my team I knew the magnitude of this game. I then decided to do an experiment to see how into this game I really got. There is the usual yelling, screaming, pacing and whatnot that occur, but this time I decided to wear my Scosche Rhythm+ Heart Rate Monitor for the entire game. Like all games that the Broncos played this year it was a close one that ended up being decided by two points in the Broncos’ favor. With it being that close, needless to say, my heart was racing at times. It was very fun to look back on my heart rate throughout the game and see the times it really spiked. Over the course of the almost four-hour game my heart rate peaked at 139 BPM or for my body type the same that is an aerobic workout. It only dipped below 100 during half time. At the end of the game with the Broncos clinging to a minimal lead the Patriots were coming in strong looking to tie the game and send it into overtime. My heart rate was consistently elevated during this with my team’s ticket to the Super Bowl on the line. Fortunately they held on and the defense held off Brady and the Patriots offense. [caption id="attachment_1641" align="aligncenter" width="625"] Rhythm+ Heart Monitor results from Digifit app[/caption] Needless to say there is legit medical evidence that I am an avid sports fan thanks to the Scosche Rhythm+ Heart Rate Monitor. I already use the Scosche Rhythm+ Heart Rate Monitor when exercising. It is great because I don’t have to wear a bulky and annoying chest strap to get accurate results. This is great because it just goes around your forearm and is hyper accurate. Now I have found another great use for it.