Completely confused over Heart Rate

S

stanislas

0
Hi,

I have a big problem

I've been doing SS jogging 4 days a week (about 30 minutes tops, because I get bored, but I guess I could go on longer) since late december of last year, and tried to do HIIT yesterday.

My resting HR is 62 (taken first thing in the morning) so it's apparently "excellent" for the 23 year old male I am.

I'm concerned about the heart rates suggested when exercising, though:
- When I jog SS, at the end my HR is about 165. That's 85% of my max heart rate. (against 60% suggested)
- During HIIT yesterday, it goes up to 180 during sprints (I did one minute running, one minute resting). That's 93% of my Maximum HR. (against 80% suggested)

I don't understand because I'm doing what I've been told: at the end of your sprints you should feel like you can't do one more step. To achieve that, I need to run up to what I'm doing. And when I run SS, I don't feel like I'm going to die or anything, I run at my natural pace (any less than that and my knees get tired), and I'm moderately tired at the end. After 5 minutes of walking, my HR goes back down to roughly 120/130.

(SS jog speed: 6.90 mph
HIIT sprint speed: 11 mph)

What's wrong with me? What should I do?
 
First, how did you determine your max heart rate? There is no safe, accurate way to measure max heart rate but 220 - your age, 197 in your case. Anaerobic threshold is a better measurement that you perform on a track. Try it again using these heart rates.

Second, 62 rhr for a 23yo is healthy and okay, certainly better than average, but far from excellent. Any 23yo athlete would have a target heart rate in the 40s if not the 30s. Mine is 48 and I am 51.
 
Last edited:
Update to this post:

Today I ran outdoor, for the first time in months. I ran for 35 minutes, about 5 miles. Because I wasn't in the gym, I didn't have the machine to give me my heart rate, so I did it the old-fashioned way: a finger on the jugular.

Turns out, after 35 min of jogging, I'm actually at 108 bpm. I guess that's pretty good... Except now I'm thinking exactly the contrary than before: Is it normal it's so low even after 35 min of jogging? After 15 min, it had gone down to 75 bpm.

(I wouldn't have thought machines were so unreliable!)
 
@g8r80 : Of course, I meant "excellent" for a non athletic person (at least that's what was said in the material I read). Keep in mind I'm not an "athlete" at all - I started to jog regularly 2 months ago, after a lifetime of couchsitting (well, that's no exactly true, as I did a lot of sport as a child, but stopped practicing after puberty...).
 
I think it is difficult to measure heart rate from your carotid or wrist, so I would strongly recommend you get a decent heart rate monitor with a chest strap. Find out what your true heart rate is and you can adjust your workout effort based on that.
 
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