What is a good way to measure my HR recovery rate, without stopping dead on the treadmill and then the blood pooling in the legs.

I.e. say im exercising for 30 mins...as 30 mins is up, I'll stop completely - then measure the HR from my HRM at 30secs, 1 min, 2min. But, then the blood pools in the legs and feels bad for a while after.

If I lightly walk on the treadmill at slow speed - the heart rate wont fall the same way as stopping dead.

What do people think ?

What is a good way to measure my HR recovery rate, without stopping dead on the treadmill and then the blood pooling in the legs.

I.e. say im exercising for 30 mins...as 30 mins is up, I'll stop completely - then measure the HR from my HRM at 30secs, 1 min, 2min. But, then the blood pools in the legs and feels bad for a while after.

If I lightly walk on the treadmill at slow speed - the heart rate wont fall the same way as stopping dead.

What do people think ?

Well your recovery rates are subjected to your purpose here. A lot of people do recovery times after only a few minutes of exercise, not 30 minutes and then stopping. So doing 2-5 min of exercise and then timing the HR is very different than needing to cool down from a 30+ min workout.

Now, in regards to what you are doing, do a slow walk for a couple min and take the pulse as a baseline, do your 30 minute workout, then go back to the slow walk and check the recovery period required then. That's my best suggestion to you. If you are experiencing blood pooling problems it isn't worth finding out your 30+ min recovery rate vs a proper coldown to avoid the complications of that.

What is a good way to measure my HR recovery rate, without stopping dead on the treadmill and then the blood pooling in the legs.

If your heart rate is elevated enough to have a meaningful recovery, then I would be surprised if pooling in the legs is an issue. Do you know you have a problem with this?

You could always try lying down after you stop.

Is the recovery rate an important measure for you? I've done some of that Harvard type recovery measurement and it doesn't seem to be that accurate as a predictor of VO2max.