Heart rate During Your Workout

[eytonxav]

I think you might have a clue as to the health of your heart based on the time it takes your heart to return to its resting rate after it gets up to a certain level, although that might be difficult to check in the gym.

 

[Alan]

I think you might have a clue as to the health of your heart based on the time it takes your heart to return to its resting rate after it gets up to a certain level, although that might be difficult to check in the gym.

A few weeks ago I was struggling with a painful shoulder and tried going to a an acupuncture doc recommended by a friend at the gym who had gone through similar issues. As part of the treatment he put me on a herbal treatment for inflammation. I went to the gym to an aerobic exercise class I like doing and I always wear a heart monitor during this class. During the warm up, jogging around the gym, I noticed by HR go straight up into the 150's, and when I started walking again it only came down into the 130's. All through the hour long class I had to reduce my workout dramatically to keep my HR below 160, and it never dropped quickly like I am used to.

I immediately stopped the pills and a few days later did the class again with no issues at all, and I pay a lot of attention in how quickly my HR comes down once I stop the activity.

 

[mpeirce]

OK, seems like one of those measurements that is easy, so people do it.

Kinda like taking your temperature when you're sick. Rarely does it matter, but it's easy. I knew someone who measured it hourly when he had a sniffle...

 

[ERhoosier]

Currently training for an ironman triathlon I usually work out about 3 hours a day swim / bike / run / strength (1 or two of these a day) My resting heart rate is around 50 and sits around 130 during my workouts... on rare occasions when I am really pushing it my heart rate goes up to around 150. I am 57 years old and weigh in at 155 (about 105 pounds less than I did a year and a half ago !). Isn't retirement great !

I found the book "Be Iron Fit" (by Don Fink) to be quite helpful.
Good luck on your IM journey!

 

[hicabob]

I like to get mine up past 160 @ 57yo. I asked my doc about heart rate and he said max possible is about 200 but that I would pass out before I hit it. He told me not to worry and that getting and holding it at a high rate is all good, but as the machines say - if you start feeling faint slow down.

 

[Amethyst]

Woww! (here's hoping you're not 7 feet tall, LOL)

Amethyst

I am 57 years old and weigh in at 155 (about 105 pounds less than I did a year and a half ago !).

 

[Bestwifeever]

Huh. Are there others out there that exercise and completely ignore their heart rates? That's me. I've been doing roughly three day a week workouts at the Y to "keep fit". A mix of treadmill/bike and some weights. I'm not training for anything, so is there any real point to measuring and tracking my pulse?

I love doing it, and also using a little Fitbit thingie to record steps. My athletic adult son, a runner and otherwise very active, thinks all of this monitoring is hilarious.

 

[Danmar]

I think HR can be important during workouts. I started using a spinning bike for some of my workouts a few years ago. (I really enjoyed using it at the lake house as I would pull it out among the trees for a workout). Anyway, at first when I used the spinner, I noticed that although I sweat a lot during the workout my heart rate( as measured at the end of the workout) didn't get very high. I just wasn't peddling hard enough. With the HR monitor I can see my HR in real time and adjust the tension accordingly. This has resulted in much better workouts. Sure, I could have figured this out on my own but the monitor gave me that extra incentive to work harder and track my progress. Every little bit helps in this regard I think.

 

[ERhoosier]

There is an interesting table HERE that relates your resting heart rate to various levels of fitness. ......

The "resting HR = fitness" idea is very rough, even amongst elite endurance athletes. And some common medications can significantly affect resting HR, so such tables do not apply to those folks at all.

Agree with bjorn2bwild that individualized AT (anaerobic ("lactate") threshold) HR is better marker to gauge exercise intensity from than "max" HR estimates. My "serious" workouts are targeted to %ATHR, not % maxHR. But also need to consider other non-exertional factors which can significantly alter HR (like emotion, dehydration, overheating, pain, chronic fatigue, etc.). Overall I find that HR is a useful tool for guiding exercise but should not be a rigid yardstick or crutch for body awareness.

 

[haha]

I hope you included yourself in that comment

I would like to, but recently at least I am regular, but not very intense.

I have no doubt that intensity is very important for sports fitness. However, I am not at all sure that this generalizes to metabolic health outcomes.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

 

[jowi]

Huh. Are there others out there that exercise and completely ignore their heart rates?

I don't! I know I'm where I 'should be' in a workout because I'm sweaty and breathing somewhat hard. Even when I did a marathon, I just printed off a training schedule, put it on my fridge and just RAN - no timer or fancy watches. Ended up doing it sub 4 hours with negative split with no 'technical training' ... so if my workouts are half-assed because I don't analyze them, well, I think it's working out OK for me.

 

[Ronstar]

No heart rate measuring for me either. I just pick a hiking pace/incline or bike speed that pushes my heart rate up to where I think I'm getting a good workout.

 

[Leonidas]

Just finished a good workout this AM. My max heart rate went to 153 BPM while the average over 45 minutes was 142. This is a little more than usual for me. I was wondering how high your heart rate goes and for how long? I am 63 years old.

I'm 54 and my HR during exercise varies depending on the workout and its goal. In general, the average never goes below mid-150's, and I frequently hit 170-175, with a few swipes at 180 on really tough days.

I don't worry about how high my HR goes during a workout because I figure I'll pass out before I die. My body sends all kinds of "please stop" signals when I hit the 170's, and it takes a lot of discipline to keep that pace for very long.

I use the HRM to keep track of how many calories I burn so I can compare one workout to another. I also use it to measure how quickly I can recover from a maxed out HR. My goal is to hit the 170+ range and bring it back down by 30 BPM within 1 minute. Currently I can lower it by 20 BPM easily, and sometimes more.

More importantly, and slightly more difficult to quantify, is how much work I can do inside of a given HR range. After a year of intense training, that has continually progressed in difficulty, I find that I have to work 2-3 times harder now than I did last year just to break a sweat and get my HR in the 150+ range. Most of the people I train with are fantastic athletes 25-30 years younger than me, and we usually burn roughly the same amount of calories in a session, but their average HR and max HR is always lower.

I'm no expert on this stuff, but I've learned a lot in the last year. How I use a HRM and what I do with the info has drastically changed in that time. Now it's all about pushing my body to make it respond with improved capacity, and the HRM helps me measure that.

 

[HFWR]

I would like to, but recently at least I am regular...

Which is really important at our age...