KissMyHuman
New member
Well after a long search, the consensus is the low intensity portion should drop my heart rate to at least 60% of my max. In otherwords, I should slow down the low intensity portion just a bit.
Heart Rate
- Thread starter plus65
- Start date
HappyHendrix
New member
Your Heart rate?
Hello!
I have a recumbent bike that I try to do for at least 30 mins and will eventually go up to 60 mins. Anyway it has a heart rate monitor on the handle bars and recently I have been trying to keep my HR at 130 and higher. By doing this, I break out into a sweat much quicker and burn more calories. Last night I did 31 mins burned 133 cals and did 7mi.
My question is: is this a good idea? Your heart rate being high is a good thing right? Can someone explain how that plays into a role, into losing weight?
Thanks in advance. Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Hello!
I have a recumbent bike that I try to do for at least 30 mins and will eventually go up to 60 mins. Anyway it has a heart rate monitor on the handle bars and recently I have been trying to keep my HR at 130 and higher. By doing this, I break out into a sweat much quicker and burn more calories. Last night I did 31 mins burned 133 cals and did 7mi.
My question is: is this a good idea? Your heart rate being high is a good thing right? Can someone explain how that plays into a role, into losing weight?
Thanks in advance. Sorry if this is a stupid question.
KissMyHuman
New member
220 - your age = your max heart rate. You can safely exercise from 50% to 75% of that to maintain and strengthen your heart, any lower and you aren't exercising your heart that much and any higher puts too much stress on it (although it is fairly hard to achieve).
There are a few exceptions, including HIIT training which will spike your heart rate. If you believe you have any cardiovascular problems, consult your doctor for an adjusted heart range.
There are a few exceptions, including HIIT training which will spike your heart rate. If you believe you have any cardiovascular problems, consult your doctor for an adjusted heart range.
TomO
0
Here is a better max HR calculator:
I don't know how old you are, but if you're over 30, the 220-age formula, particularly if you are in half way decent shape, is too conservative. My max HR is about 8 points higher than the formula.
You will find that as you get in better and better shape, what was once "taxing" is no longer so. When I first started out, 70% of max HR, which for me is about 118 bpm, was a real workout. Now I do around 82% of max HR (137 bpm) on my steady state days when I'm recovering from weight training. When I do HIIT, my average heart rate for the entire hour is over 80% of max HR, and around 15 to 20 minutes of that is at 90 to 95% of max HR.
Yes, that stress IS good for your heart, but only if you have no underlying heart problems. If you have any suspicion that you do, see your doctor first!
I don't know how old you are, but if you're over 30, the 220-age formula, particularly if you are in half way decent shape, is too conservative. My max HR is about 8 points higher than the formula.
You will find that as you get in better and better shape, what was once "taxing" is no longer so. When I first started out, 70% of max HR, which for me is about 118 bpm, was a real workout. Now I do around 82% of max HR (137 bpm) on my steady state days when I'm recovering from weight training. When I do HIIT, my average heart rate for the entire hour is over 80% of max HR, and around 15 to 20 minutes of that is at 90 to 95% of max HR.
Yes, that stress IS good for your heart, but only if you have no underlying heart problems. If you have any suspicion that you do, see your doctor first!
Cardio and heart rate help!
Ok, I jsut started working out a few days ago. At the gym the trainer said when I do cardio to do it at least 40 minutes and to keep my heart rate in the fat burning area which would be about 130-155 if I understand correctly. Well I did the elliptical today and going as slow as the machine would go my heart rate was still 164 at the lowest. Is this just because I am out of shape> What should I do about this? Is the workout helping me at all? Please help..
Thanks
Amy
Ok, I jsut started working out a few days ago. At the gym the trainer said when I do cardio to do it at least 40 minutes and to keep my heart rate in the fat burning area which would be about 130-155 if I understand correctly. Well I did the elliptical today and going as slow as the machine would go my heart rate was still 164 at the lowest. Is this just because I am out of shape> What should I do about this? Is the workout helping me at all? Please help..
Thanks
Amy
rubylee
New member
I'm not too sure if the fat burning area heart rate is is 130-155.
In any case, when your heart rate is 164 when you are at the lowest setting of the machine, I guess you are out of shape.
What you can do to get to get into the heart rate of 120-155 is to find an exercise that is not too intense. Perhaps walking is an alternative.
You find that as you get fitter, your heart rate will lower for the same exercise.
In any case, when your heart rate is 164 when you are at the lowest setting of the machine, I guess you are out of shape.
What you can do to get to get into the heart rate of 120-155 is to find an exercise that is not too intense. Perhaps walking is an alternative.
You find that as you get fitter, your heart rate will lower for the same exercise.
Heart Rate Question
Ok, so here's my question on target heart rate. I've been doing some poking around on the internet and it seems everyone is calculating Rate(max) and Rate(optimum) differently. According to one site my target heart rate should be between 79-99, according to another it's 130-160.
If I go by the "fancy pants" computer on the bike I was riding it says my target rate for "fat burning" should be around 155B/m...which is very low. I found that around 170s is when I feel like I'm actually working for it...anything below 150 seems to be a joke, for me.
Also, while doing a hill climb at one point my heart rate was into the upper 190s for about two min, at that point I decided that I was near death
, so I toned it down, but come to find out that was pretty much up around Rate(max) for me.
So...heart rate...what would be the optimal heart rate to attempt to keep, is there a better way of calculating it other then age and "fitness level"?
Thanks in advance!
Ok, so here's my question on target heart rate. I've been doing some poking around on the internet and it seems everyone is calculating Rate(max) and Rate(optimum) differently. According to one site my target heart rate should be between 79-99, according to another it's 130-160.
If I go by the "fancy pants" computer on the bike I was riding it says my target rate for "fat burning" should be around 155B/m...which is very low. I found that around 170s is when I feel like I'm actually working for it...anything below 150 seems to be a joke, for me.
Also, while doing a hill climb at one point my heart rate was into the upper 190s for about two min, at that point I decided that I was near death
, so I toned it down, but come to find out that was pretty much up around Rate(max) for me.So...heart rate...what would be the optimal heart rate to attempt to keep, is there a better way of calculating it other then age and "fitness level"?
Thanks in advance!
TomO
0
The beginning point of calculating your heart rate is finding a good number for your absolute maximum HR. This should be a number you don't get to, except while a doctor is looking on.
There are 3 common formulas:
1) age - 220
2) 205 - (age / 2)
3) 214 - (0.8 x age)
Formula 1 is the old standby, and if you're 30 years old or less, will give you a pretty good idea. However, this formula breaks down the older you get, and if you're an old geezer like me, it's way too conservative.
The 2nd formula will give you a higher one, but it assumes you are very fit. For me, it's a bit too aggressive.
The 3rd formula is in the middle.
You can go . For example, my resting heart rate is 55, and my age is 58. That gives me the following:
1) 162
2) 176
3) 167
In practice, I've found that 170 is just about the right number for me. The thing I like about this site, is that once you have your target, you can also use it as the input, even if it doesn't conform exactly to the formula. So, when I enter 170, I get the following:
100% = 170
95% = 161.5
90% = 153.0
85% = 144.5
80% = 136.0
75% = 127.5
etc.
The other part of your question had to do with what range you should exercise in. I don't think there is a good answer for this, except that it all depends on what exercise you're doing. If you're doing HIIT, for example, your sprints should initially take you to the 90% range, but after 3 or 4 sprints, you should be in the 95% range. If you're doing heavy interval cardio, your intervals may take you all the way to 95%, and you may average around 85% for the entire workout. Steady state cardio may put you in the 80% range for the workout. A really heavy squat or deadlift, which is using a lot of large muscles, may temporarily shoot you up to the 85% or even the 90% range.
As for what the machines recommend, ignore them completely. These are set up for casual exercises who want to feel good while they're walking on a treadmill at 2 miles an hour reading a paper. And don't get me wrong, if you have a huge amount of weight to lose, and you've not been exercising at all, that is good. But as you get more fit, you have to up your standards.
Hope this helps!
There are 3 common formulas:
1) age - 220
2) 205 - (age / 2)
3) 214 - (0.8 x age)
Formula 1 is the old standby, and if you're 30 years old or less, will give you a pretty good idea. However, this formula breaks down the older you get, and if you're an old geezer like me, it's way too conservative.
The 2nd formula will give you a higher one, but it assumes you are very fit. For me, it's a bit too aggressive.
The 3rd formula is in the middle.
You can go . For example, my resting heart rate is 55, and my age is 58. That gives me the following:
1) 162
2) 176
3) 167
In practice, I've found that 170 is just about the right number for me. The thing I like about this site, is that once you have your target, you can also use it as the input, even if it doesn't conform exactly to the formula. So, when I enter 170, I get the following:
100% = 170
95% = 161.5
90% = 153.0
85% = 144.5
80% = 136.0
75% = 127.5
etc.
The other part of your question had to do with what range you should exercise in. I don't think there is a good answer for this, except that it all depends on what exercise you're doing. If you're doing HIIT, for example, your sprints should initially take you to the 90% range, but after 3 or 4 sprints, you should be in the 95% range. If you're doing heavy interval cardio, your intervals may take you all the way to 95%, and you may average around 85% for the entire workout. Steady state cardio may put you in the 80% range for the workout. A really heavy squat or deadlift, which is using a lot of large muscles, may temporarily shoot you up to the 85% or even the 90% range.
As for what the machines recommend, ignore them completely. These are set up for casual exercises who want to feel good while they're walking on a treadmill at 2 miles an hour reading a paper. And don't get me wrong, if you have a huge amount of weight to lose, and you've not been exercising at all, that is good. But as you get more fit, you have to up your standards.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the info Tom!
So, that brings me to an additional query.
Taking the info from the site you listed, and inputting my resting heart rate at 54 @ 23yrs old
100 197.0
95 187.1
90 177.3
85 167.4
80 157.6
Which, to me, seems to be correct because at 198bpm I thought I was going to pass out after about a minuet or so. So that means 170bpm puts me at 86% and change.
I have read that the optimum heart rate for fat burning to occur is somewhere between 60-75% of Rate(max), and that sustaining higher heart rates in the 85%+ range actually decrease the body's ability to burn fat, however at the prescribed rate I will not be doing anything to increase my fitness level. I was under the impression that increasing ones level of fitness and burning weight were not mutually exclusive concepts.
Thanks again!
So, that brings me to an additional query.
Taking the info from the site you listed, and inputting my resting heart rate at 54 @ 23yrs old
100 197.0
95 187.1
90 177.3
85 167.4
80 157.6
Which, to me, seems to be correct because at 198bpm I thought I was going to pass out after about a minuet or so. So that means 170bpm puts me at 86% and change.
I have read that the optimum heart rate for fat burning to occur is somewhere between 60-75% of Rate(max), and that sustaining higher heart rates in the 85%+ range actually decrease the body's ability to burn fat, however at the prescribed rate I will not be doing anything to increase my fitness level. I was under the impression that increasing ones level of fitness and burning weight were not mutually exclusive concepts.
Thanks again!
( My apologies in advance if Steve has already touched on this next point elsewhere in the forum
)Just want to make a very minor distinction between your description of training to improve your body's ability to burn fat as fuel and losing fat from doing exercise in general.
To burn fat while exercising, you need to have oxygen. So, if you want to burn more fat while doing cardio you have to train aerobically - which means you can breathe deeply but you don't gasp so you get out of breath ( i.e no oxygen ) while training. Burning fat actually means your body is using ' fat burning enzymes ' to get the energy from fat to meet your body's needs. So, if you think burning - think enzymes. Over time, your body adapts to all this aerobic cardio, so the more you run aerobically, the more your body adapts by creating more fat burning enzymes to burn fat. Doing more and more aerobic training will simply cause you to produce more and more fat burning enzymes. So, your body's ability to burn fat ( i.e because you're producing more enzymes ) gets better and better the more aerobic cardio that you do. And as you pointed out, this aerobic training usually is around 65%-80% +/- MHR.
[ btw - if you DO get out of breath doing cardio, now you're training anaerobically, so you're burning more glucose instead of fat.]
Now, to lose fat, what you need to do is simply create a calorie deficit. You can get that deficit from a combo of adjustments to your diet, with the addition of weight training and the addition of both aerobic cardio & anaerobic cardio. For example, HIIT is anaeorbic exercise that not only burns calories while you exercise but burns calories long afterwards as well. Weight training is also another anaeorbic exercise that burns calories while you exercise & burns calories afterwards.
I suspect Steve has already covered this, but if you want to lose fat, I'd focus more on different ways for your body to optimally burn ' total calories ' per session instead of trying to focus on getting your heart rate into some " fat burning zone/heart-rate " while on the treadmill. " Again, training at " fat burning zone " is a misleading way to got about losing fat.
Steve - I'm sure you've already covered how misleading these cardio " fat burning zones " are in another post somewhere as an fyi for Play2Win. If not, I can paste in another post of mine that goes into this " fat burning zone " into a bit more detail.
If you are exercising at the lower end of the "fat burning range", you won't feel like you are exerting yourself. But you will be working out.
There is a common misbelief that if you are not breathing hard or not sweating, you are not working out hard enough. At a heart rate of 65-70%, it is very possible to carry on a conversation even though the body is physically exerting itself. Maintain that heart rate for 90 or 120 minutes and later in the day, you will feel tired - unless of course, you are in really good shape.
When I was cycling competitively, I would go out for 50-60 mile rides mostly keeping my heart rate at around 70%. It felt good, built strength and burned calories.
The thing about heart rate is that you don't have to know exactly what your max heart rate is to really benefit it. Any of the calculations you mentioned will get you in the ballpark - which for most people is good enough. And as you get in better shape, there are workouts that can be done to get a better estimate of what your max heart rate is.
In five years of competitive cycling, I only hit my max heart rate once. (For those of you who know cycling, it was a points race and I was off the front on a bell lap.) A friend said he never saw anyone grimace so much and it took a considerable amount of time for me to feel like I had control of my breath - then again it was during a race and resting for me was still around 80% of my max heart rate. (And for those of you who are wondering, I ended up helping a teammate win and finishing 6th myself out of about 50 people.)
-Charles
TomO
0
I have talked about it numerous times. Where the heck were you Wrangell, when I was arguing with some "guru" who was claiming the most optimal way to train is to hit the moderate, fat-burning zone!
It is good information, and always good for people to read again. Thanks.
It is good information, and always good for people to read again. Thanks.
Just as I suspected.
Bear with me guys....still new to the forum....guess I should of done my homework on which topics Steve has already covered BEFORE I posted.
Hell no you shouldn't do your homework. Don't worry about me Wrangell. I promise, you will not be stepping on my toes. My toes aren't to be stepped on anyhow, this is not MY community.
I repeat myself all of the time on this forum. It's the nature of an internet community. You have new people coming and going all of the time, who need the same information repeated that you already covered last week. I would be glad if you picked up some of the slack.
I like reading your posts too! So post away. I have a feeling that some interesting discussions will take place between the two of us.
I repeat myself all of the time on this forum. It's the nature of an internet community. You have new people coming and going all of the time, who need the same information repeated that you already covered last week. I would be glad if you picked up some of the slack.
I like reading your posts too! So post away. I have a feeling that some interesting discussions will take place between the two of us.
Truly Fair
Guest
Gimpy Heart Rate
well then!
I would consider myself as averagely fit
I may not be the best at endurance tests (wouldn't catch me doing a marathon) but I am very good at short bursts of energy, say sprinting 100m and am not one of those that struggles to make it up the stairs
however I am slightly conserned by my heart rate
at rest it is usually about 90bpm, which I know is rather high
during cardio exercise it will get up to around 185 bpm (which is still within the safe range for my age, but rather high!)
should I be worried about this?
is there a chance it is affecting my ability to lose weight?
..x.
well then!
I would consider myself as averagely fit
I may not be the best at endurance tests (wouldn't catch me doing a marathon) but I am very good at short bursts of energy, say sprinting 100m and am not one of those that struggles to make it up the stairs
however I am slightly conserned by my heart rate
at rest it is usually about 90bpm, which I know is rather high
during cardio exercise it will get up to around 185 bpm (which is still within the safe range for my age, but rather high!)
should I be worried about this?
is there a chance it is affecting my ability to lose weight?
..x.
Michelle01
New member
I dont think it's affecting your ability to loose weight at all.
As you increase your cardiac fitness, your heart rate will likely decrease at rest and with activity.
Have you been to the doctor for your regular checkups and mentioned your high resting heart rate? And is there any history in your family of heart conditions? If you're heart is healthy, then I think it just comes down to cardiac fitness.
My resting heart rate has gotten as low as 40 bmp. Not often, but it has been, typically I'm closer to 48-52. I check each night before bed, so typically I've been on the computer for a bit, then brush my teeth, then time for the heart rate check. So, mine is very low, but nothing to worry about for me. Because of my family history of young onset of cardiomyopathy, I have an echocardiogram at a minimum of every 5 years. An extra one this last time with my last pregnancy by my doctors request.
Heart disease is nothing to mess around with though, so definitely check with your doctor to make sure there is no concerns there if you haven't already.
As you increase your cardiac fitness, your heart rate will likely decrease at rest and with activity.
Have you been to the doctor for your regular checkups and mentioned your high resting heart rate? And is there any history in your family of heart conditions? If you're heart is healthy, then I think it just comes down to cardiac fitness.
My resting heart rate has gotten as low as 40 bmp. Not often, but it has been, typically I'm closer to 48-52. I check each night before bed, so typically I've been on the computer for a bit, then brush my teeth, then time for the heart rate check. So, mine is very low, but nothing to worry about for me. Because of my family history of young onset of cardiomyopathy, I have an echocardiogram at a minimum of every 5 years. An extra one this last time with my last pregnancy by my doctors request.
Heart disease is nothing to mess around with though, so definitely check with your doctor to make sure there is no concerns there if you haven't already.
ElenaDragon
New member
Are you taking any medications? Sometimes those can alter your heart rate, but it is nothing to be alarmed about if you are taking it under the supervision of a doctor.