Hi all. I am new to this forum, but I have already found alot of the information shared here helpful. For example, I now know that I am a Clydesdale - indentity crisis over :)

Of course, I am interested in no longer being a large draft horse (even if they get the best beer and all the mares), which leads me to my question.

I live in a cold weather state, so I have been doing some treadmill work in the off season to lose weight. Although I am experiencing some success, I am having serious trouble achieving and maintaining my target heart rate. Even when I feel very exerted I am not at the rate I need to be. Often I check my THR and find it has gone down after a period of higher intensity - that just doesn't make sense to me. The monitor I am using is just the gismo on my treadmill that uses a thumb press, which can't be very accurate, so maybe that is my problem. I would think, inaccurate or not, it would at least be consistent (as-in not showing a decreasing HR after increased intensity). I mean I am showing rates in the 60's and sometimes the 50's when my resting rate is around 68.

I have tried running stairs and doing some punching bag work pre-treadmill to pre-load my HR with no success. I am not looking to do training for a race or something, just lose weight. I am 34, 5'10 240 (going down). Most of the time I am running in the morning, but I have also had problems in the evening after circuit training with free weights.

I am hoping for some strategies on stoking the HR fire a bit, and maybe some confirmation that its the cheesy HRM and not me (I hesitate to blame it on the equipment because that seems like the easy way out).

Please help, this is getting frustrating as I feel I'm not making the most out of my training.

Its easy enough to check your HRM and eliminate that possiblity. Back in the day, we used to actually put a finger to our wrist or neck and count the beats per minute. I know, it's archaic, but it actually works.
Something is wrong if your resting HR is 68 and your workout rate is lower. Resting HR by definition, is the lowest rate your heart will beat (unless you are sleeping) because you aren't doing anything to elevate it.

First off, invest in a proper HR monitor. The ones by Polar will do the trick and there's various models available based on your budget and the info you want to extract from them. The finger press HRM on the treadmill probably isnt very accurate.

Your target HR should be around 70% of your max HR (calculated by 220 minus your age, if memory serves me right) if you want to get some sort of benefit out of your exercise routine. If you're looking to lose weight rather than train for a race, you're probably better off not having to worry about your HR and focus more on burning calories by putting in more miles on the treadmill or rollers.

BTW, my advice isnt because I'm some kinda fitness/medical guru... I just had a good nites sleep at the Holiday Inn!!!

For sure, invest in a proper heart rate monitor. I just bought the Sports Instruments ECG 5. If you shop around at all you can find it for $50-55 (ediscountbike or Supergo) and it has quite a few features for the money. I was also considering the Sigma PC1600 but I prefer the ECG 5 if I want to just wear it around as a regular watch. The ECG 5 is cheap enough that there's no sense in getting one of the slightly cheaper models with less features.

If you're really cheap, keep an eye on ebay. For about a year I used a cheap, old HRM I picked up for something like $6.50. It worked OK and even came with 2 transmitters. I killed one in a crash where I landed on it hard enough to take a chip out of my sternum and crack a rib and the other one eventually started acting funky.