Heart Rate Questions

K

kenk2005

0
They say:

60-70% of max hr : weight loss, building endurance
70-80% of max hr: weight management, improve cardio fitness

I bought myself a heart rate monitor watch. I do want to lose weight, but at 60-70%, I barely feel I am exercising. I mean yeah I break a bit of sweat, but still. And the calories burned (according to the treadmill), says I would burn 350-400. I was doing it at that level for a while, 5 times a week.

Recently, I've been doing high interval training, where I would go faster for 4-5 minutes and then take it easy for the next 4-5 minutes. During the high intensity period, my heart rate is at 80%. I break a sweat, moreso and feel like I have had an awesome workout. The calories burned at the end of the session is 600-650.

So what level should I stay at? 60-70% even though I don't feel like it's doing much and my calories burned are much lower. I am very confused....

Thank you

Ken
 
Interval training is the way to go. Here http://www.fitness.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=141
 
I've never really taken any notice of the max heart rate thingy. what I tend to do is pick a length of time then pick a resistance level or speed then start off and adjust the resistance as necessary. If I'm struggling, I ease off. On the cross trainer, my heart rate is normally around 165-170 bpm for almost the whole 30 mins with a resistance level of 16 (max is 20).

Try just working as hard as you can for a set period as oppose to keeping your heart rate in a certain range, you'll know if its too difficult or not and you'll get a great workout each time if you keep pushing yourself.
 
Or just try HIIT and get the best of both worlds. Go at a medium comfy pace and go a bit faster each minute until the fifth minute when you are working at a sprint. Then you start back at a low pace and catch your breath and go a little faster each minute. after twenty minutes (four short Rounds) you will be buzzed.
 
Will 30 minutes be enough? If I do it over an hour, I usually burn 600 calories. I ask because many say don't do HIIT for more than 30 minutes. This will be 300-400 calories.

Or can I jug at a comfortable pace for the first 1/2 hour and then do the HIIT for the last 1/2 hour?

Also: 5 times a week - is this good enough?

Thank you
 
20 minutes 3 times a week is all you need. After that you risk catobolism which is when your body eats it's own muscle to fuel your cardio. The first 20 minutes will mostly burn fat.
I know that you could probably go longer. I am fully capable of running for six hours, I have done it. It is not what will get you results, though. Short cardio=fast results. Just be sure that you don't skimp on the intensity
 
Ahh, I see. Thank you for the response.

Well, I can always alternate so my body doesn't get used to it. 3 days of HIIT as you suggested, and then 2 days of regular walking on incline/jogging.

So something like this for HIIT:

5 minute warmup
1st minute 6.0mph
2nd minute 6.5mph
3rd minute 7.0mph
4th minute 7.5mph
5th minute 8.0mph
Rest for 3-5 minutes
Repeat for 30 minutes.

Is this a good way to do it?

Or 1 minute sprints as hard as I can go and a minute rest. Repeat for 20-25 minutes.
 
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No, your close though. Now I don't think anyone should ever rest for three minutes unless powerlifting in which case three is the absolute maximum. Just my opinion.

Now, for HIIT there is no rest. Just get more intense until you are at maximum effort and then slow down to a crawl and work back up. Don't stop and restart at a crawl. There is no stopping.
No more than 25 minutes is neccesary. 20 is better really. The only reason I ever go over is becaue I do martial arts HIIT and I need to practice a whole lot of moves and twenty minutes is hard to squeeze it all into.
Now if you are just running, you should have no problem limiting yourself to twenty minutes.

As for the one minute sprint one minute rest- (sprintstops) that is actually what I am working on right now. It is deadly effective but very very hard. Give it a shot if you want to but it is an extremely demanding way to train and being new to this you may hurt yourself. I have been running for almost ten years now and this training is kicking my ass.
Besides it will not give you endurance like the former method. What Sprintstop training will give you is explosiveness and strength in your fast twitch muscle fibers as opposed to endurance and slow twitch muscle fibers. And it requires a lot of endurance and lung power to pull off.

But hey, if you think you got the gonads for sprintstops go ahead- It will make you a warrior. But if it is too tough go back to HIIT which is still considdered an advanced training method. And if that is too hard just go back to one solid pace and go faster when you feel strong. No pressure. But dude if you can do 20 minutes of sprintstops let me know. That would rock
 
Hey man,

I just got back from the treadmill downstairs (living in a high-rise). So I did it for 25 minutes, 4 blocks of "work". I burned 400 calories:

I warmed up at 4mph and then after that, I went up to 6mph. After a minute, back to 6.5mph, then 7.0mph, then 7.5mph and then 8.0 for the final fifth minute. Then, back down to 4.0 for a minute - 90 seconds.

It was tough though not that bad. I recovered pretty quickly. I do feel a bit light-headed and my legs feel like they worked more.

But 400 calories - yes, this is good but I used to burn 500-600 when I would jog for an hour. Should I not care about this? Maybe tomorrow I will jog for a good 15-20 minutes before doing this routine again.

Thank you for your advice.
 
kenk2005 said:
Hey man,

I just got back from the treadmill downstairs (living in a high-rise). So I did it for 25 minutes, 4 blocks of "work". I burned 400 calories:

I warmed up at 4mph and then after that, I went up to 6mph. After a minute, back to 6.5mph, then 7.0mph, then 7.5mph and then 8.0 for the final fifth minute. Then, back down to 4.0 for a minute - 90 seconds.

It was tough though not that bad. I recovered pretty quickly. I do feel a bit light-headed and my legs feel like they worked more.

But 400 calories - yes, this is good but I used to burn 500-600 when I would jog for an hour. Should I not care about this? Maybe tomorrow I will jog for a good 15-20 minutes before doing this routine again.

Thank you for your advice.
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You shouldn't worry, because when you do hitt, you burn more calories after you stop, for longer periods throughout your day. So really you are burning more calories/fat with hiit. I was doing hiit, but when walking one day, I sprained ankle. Let me tell you hitt works, I got thin fast. Now I can just do regular walks till I finish healing, but as soon as I can, hiit for me 3times per week, regular walks twice per week. Hope this helps.
 
Yeah, for reals. Those calorie counters seldom take into account your perceived effort but never take into account your metabolism or the boost to your system that the workout gives you that will make you burn more calories for the rest of the day. 400 is what you burned in twenty minutes but the after effects are what really matters.

I just hope that 4.0 is your minimum effort and 8 is your maximum effort.
 
Mr.Ninjaface said:
I just hope that 4.0 is your minimum effort and 8 is your maximum effort.
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Yes, it is. I go from 4 to 8 in increments of 0.5 mph every minute and then slow it back down to 4 mph for 60-90 seconds. By 8.0mph, I am feeling at the max....

I can only exercise after work, so around 6-7pm. I usually have one meal after this. Hopefully, doing this at that time is still as effective.
 
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they say I cant cross 150 but I always do and Im not tired but they claim my heart is beating too fastly.. Im confused lol
 
If you think you will have a heart attack than you are going too fast. otherwise you are fine. I always try to go up to 200 but the better shape I am in the harder this gets which makes me try harder.
 
Some things I agree with on here and somethings I don't-
High intensity cardio work isn't going to burn fat because it's an anaerobic activity and you only burn carbs for anaerobic activity. The argument of the HIIT guys is that by doing this method you burn more over all calories and that you increase your EPOC (excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption).

Simply doing high intensity cardio work more than 20 minutes 3 times a week isn't going to cause catabolism, if we're entering catabolism then we're already in starvation mode to begin with.

Ken, there is a formula you can apply to get the exact amount of calories you're burning, does the machine measure in METS? If it does, I can show you how to use the formula to plug your time and weight into it and get your true number of calories you're burning.

You might also try doing the intensity at 1 min-8mph, 1 min-6 mph, 1 min-8 mph, 1 min-6 mph and continue for 20-30 minutes.
 
I go off the treadmill calorie counter which says it is based on a 150 pound person. I am around 165. So will this be even more for me?

I did some today but yeah, not that easy. I jogged at 4.5mph for about 1/2 hour and then did some hiit for the remainder 30 minutes. I went from 5.0-8.0mph over a period of 5 minutes, and back down to 4 mph for 1-2 minutes for rest. It obviously gets harder after each "work" stretch. Machine said I burned 530 calories. I can live with that :)

Haven't heard of METS - what is that precisely?

Thank you all for your awesome insight and posts.
 
evolution said:
You might also try doing the intensity at 1 min-8mph, 1 min-6 mph, 1 min-8 mph, 1 min-6 mph and continue for 20-30 minutes.
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I'll build up to that but I can say that will kick my ass. As Mr. Ninjaface stated, it's extremely hard. I'll have to work up to that.

In the meantime though, is this not the correct way of doing it:

Minute 1: 5.5mph
Minute 2: 6.0mph
Minute 3: 6.5mph
Minute 4: 7.0mph
Minute 5: 8.0mph
Minute 6 and 7: Rest going down to 4.0mph

Repeat about 4-5 times.

Will this be effective?
 
A little off-topic here, but is it possible to do HIIT in a single room without equipment? For example, if you can sprint on the spot to your maximum effort - will it still be effective?

Also.. is it bad to have a light walk later in the day on the same day you did HIIT? I just started HIIT and I'll be doing it three times a week - right now my leg muscles hurt quite a bit, but I think it'll be okay by tomorrow. On the off days I'll be trying to work out the top half of my body, push-ups etc. My goal is firstly to lose weight.
 
I have done martial arts HIIT for years either shadow boxing or throwing kicks of varying difficulty so I know that is possible.

running in place suppose could work. Try keeping your knees as high as possible on the high end to get your heart really moving. The important thing is that you really are working yourself that hard on your maximum intensity. if your maximum intensity is not that intense than you are not doing HIIT properly. that is about the only way to really mess it up.

As for not walking later in the day, I am not sure I follow your question. After your workout you may need to go for a walk- The workout does not disallow that. If you feel that walking is a workout of some sort than perhaps you are not in good enough shape to be doing HIIT in the first place.
 
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