Yikes heart rate 165 for 41 YO female?

L

lynna

New Member
Hi,
Hubby took me to the base gym last week. I got on the ecaliptical (sp). It said to go at 85 percent HR for a TWENTY year old would be 164. Well in only FIVE min MY heart rate was 165!!!I had the setting on the fat burning. I DO workout and my HR NEVER has went that high.
I am thinking about just sticking to easier stuff like Leslie Sansone WATP and have recently started something called The Firm with Fanny Lifter. Had tried Turbo Jam WAY too fast for me. I need to go slow and steady my endurance for aerobics is not great but I am flexable and can do weight lifting programs.
I also have got great results with Tony Little Target Toning Tapes. Is Cathe Friedrich workouts going to be too hard for me?I can do the weight lifting portion of "The Firm" with no problems. I am having a little trouble keeping up with the aerobic portion.I really enjoy lifting weights but HATE aerobics as I have 2 left feet. I like the interval training as Covert Bailey has said it is a great way for obese people to get fit faster.
I have blood sugar issues and really want to be around to see my kids grow up.I know about such things as The Lap band and the cure rate for type 2 diabeties is fantastic BUT I also know that if you also have fatty liver that VERY QUICK weight can make the problem worse. Sooo sorry for being long winded but I really need some advice. Anyone else that has these issues can you share some advice? BTW, my A1C always comes back under 7 but my fasting sugars are high. This confounds me and my doctor.
 
Were you using a chest HRM or were you using those "handle" heart rate takers? I've never had luck with those types of things.

Did you FEEL like you were working out at a very high intensity?

Check out this link for calculating HR zones.

http://www.briancalkins.com/HeartRate.htm

You might want to start with Basic Step, Low Impact Step and Body Fusion to see how you and Cathe get along. I always wear a HRM and modify to keep my HR in a zone I'm aiming for.

April
 
I used the one on the equipment. Built in hand pulse. Yes I was def feeling winded. BTW,am I out of place here? From some of the stuff I am reading here many are WAY beyond me in fitness terms. My endurance has always been bad however my strenth training even as an 11 YO on a military base school was always great. We did'nt know back then that lifting HEAVY weights was NOT good for children.
 
Don't EVER beleive the heart rate monitors on the the handles! We bought an excellent treadmill, but the handles will say my heartrate is something silly like "198" when my regular HRM says 135! get a real HRM!
 
It could be 165 but that's not necessarily bad. I have read in several places that the heart rate "ranges" that are posted everywhere are applicable only to a segment of the population. It was kind of like the old statistic about women being more likely to be killed by a terrorist than get married after a certain age (or some such thing). Somehow the small study that produced those numbers was seized by the media and now it is taken as gospel. For some people the ranges are too low and they'll never get into a training mode if they feel compelled to stop because they've reached some arbitrary limit.

Do some research and talk to your doctor. I've read that the most important thing is how quickly your heart rate drops from its high after you stop exercising.

Also, I would suggest you Google the Karvonen formula for heart rate and the perceived exertion test.
 
Ooh? Is that bad? Someone said to me the other day that isn't bad.
My heart rate when doing Cathe workouts goes up to 199 sometimes. I used to get worried then I think Dr. Oz or the X-weighted guy said if the heart rate returns to normal quickly then you are in good cardio vascular health. So I stopped worrying.

Can someone please confirm this?

Thanks
 
When I do Cardio Coach on my bike at home, my heart rate often goes up to 170 or so. That's completely normal for me. (I'm 42 by the way).

Shelbygirl
 
My HR also shoots up there when doing some hard cardio. I have had it in the 190s while doing both spinning and treadmill work. It does come down fairly fast during recovery periods but then it is only down in the 150s unless we have a long recovery period, like the cool down.

How accurate it is I don't know but I do wear it often when doing cardio on the spinner and treadmill. Just interesting to watch.

I go by how I feel mostly. If I am getting "sick" or light headed then I slow myself down. I think it also depends on how I am feeling first thing in the morning since I workout at 4am.

Rhonda
 
I'm 46 and I can get my HR (measured on my HRM) up to 168-170 during Spinning classes. I have been working out all my life and I would say I'm at the same fitness level that I was in my 20s. My resting (sitting) HR is 58. My first-thing-in-the-morning resting (lying) HR is probably lower than that.

The standard formula for the "average" woman is maximum HR = 226 - your age. In my case, 100% would be 180 BPM. I generally pretend I'm 26 and assume a max HR of 200 BPM instead. My 170 BPM would be 85% of that maximum, or just above the ceiling of my aerobic zone (which is about what I feel when I'm at that level).

I don't really feel anything when I work at 65-80% of my age-predicted maximum (that would be 117-144 using the "correct" formula for a 46-year-old female). I need to push harder than that - 150 feels like a good tough (but sustainable) cardio workout to me.

I agree with Rhonda about going by how I feel. If I am feeling nauseous or light headed I slow down - if I hit this point it usually means I have gone above 170 in the previous minute or so.
 
>
>Ooh? Is that bad? Someone said to me the other day that isn't
>bad.
>My heart rate when doing Cathe workouts goes up to 199
>sometimes. I used to get worried then I think Dr. Oz or the
>X-weighted guy said if the heart rate returns to normal
>quickly then you are in good cardio vascular health. So I
>stopped worrying.
>
>Can someone please confirm this?
>
>Thanks


Shaan,

Age based Max HR is only rough guide. It was never intended to be a "rule". The flaw in this method is that it provides the same results for a 40 year old athlete who has trained hard every day for 25 years and a 40 year old who leads a sedentary life. Obviously the athlete has an edge that the formula does not take into account.

This link provides more details on different formulas to calculate heart rate:
http://www.trifuel.com/triathlon/heart-rate-training/heart-rate-formulas-000928.php

Most cardio machines use the Age-Adjusted formula for determining training zones. If you are fit, this is not a good guide.

Also, your target heart rate during HIIT (high intensity interval training) is not supposed to be the same as the target heart rate zone for "fat-burning steady state cardio". In HIIT you train in anearobically for short bursts, where the objective is to get your heart rate close to its max.

While I have absolutely no basis to say this, I suspect HR is being made such a big deal of to sell gadgets like heart rate monitors. I listen to my body and think that is a perfectly reliable guide. If I can still talk (not breathless) but feel like I am working, I am in my aerobic zone. If my heart rate goes too high during anaerobic training, my body tells me so - if I feel I am approaching "extreme" pressure I back off.


~* Vrinda *~
 
Hi everyone,
Thanks for all the advice. At least I don't have to worry now that I am about to drop over dead and leave my poor little ones "motherless" VBG ;) .
 
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