I'm in my mid-40s and I do cardio 3x weekly, and during my sessions, it's basically HIIT training. I try to keep my HR above 150 during my sessions, but it peaks in the low 180s intermittently.
Is this okay? My doctor noted potential concerns with getting my HR up that high, but it could be fine, she wasn't sure. I don't get any dizziness or anything (generally that happens if I sustain a heart rate above 185 for a bit). I'm not staying at 180 bpm, that's just the peak, I'm targeting an average HR of around 150-155 for my workouts.
In a 60 minute workout, I'll probably spend 10-15 minutes with my HR between 166 and 182 range.
Not sure if I should scale it down a bit or take it easier, or if this is fine.
44 Comments
peppersnail@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 1d
HR is quite individual, so you can’t say for sure either way from what you wrote. I think you should listen to your body, and if things feel off, find an expert and take their advice seriously. But otherwise, go nuts.
I started racing bikes in my 40s, and during peak efforts (VO2Max efforts to failure mostly), I would hit what I would consider my max heart rate at 170-something. I did this for many many years (10+).
I do have heart issues, but I think that’s from the more sustained endurance efforts that you get from training for bike racing at a very high level. High calcium scoring is a thing among endurance athletes like that.
in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social · 12 pts · 1d
If you're not feeling dizzy, having chest pains or getting blurred or tunnel vision you're fine.
Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 1d
Add, if you are recovering to a lower heart rate quickly, you are also fine. After finishing cardio how long does it take you to get below 99 and how long to base rate? You should be back under 99 in 5mins.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6h
Checked with tonight's workout and watched my HR after. Workout ended at 140 bpm, took under 4 minutes to drop to 105, but 9 minutes to drop to 100. I'm about 15 minutes post-cardio now, heart rate is still bouncing between 90 and 105, but slowly trending down. Currently 98 bpm.
Not sure how long it takes to get back to base rate, usually after workouts my heart rate is a bit higher than normal for the rest of the night, though it doesn't seem to affect my resting heart rate. I'll probably be in the high 70s to 80s for the next hour or two at least based on past experience.
Tonight's workout I took it a little easier. My HR did peak at 186, but only briefly, and my average bpm for the workout was 143 (it's usually over 150).
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14h
Usually after a workout my heart rate is still elevated for a while (like mid-80s to 90), but drops down to around 95-105 pretty quickly. I usually do a cooldown toward the last few minutes of the workout and end it with my heart rate around 135-140, and then after so long as I’m idle it drops from there.
I’ll monitor my next session and check with a timer.
DrBob@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 1d
Have you determined your max heart rate (HRM), and if so, how?
HRM is highly variable among individuals and calculators based on age etc are a waste of electrons.
If you know your HRM (and if you're not puking while finding out, you're not there yet) you can calculate your heart rate reserve which is the difference between resting and max.
I'm a 60 year old runner. Speed work and tempo sessions will put me up in your range for up to 30 minutes at a time. Interval work will put me over 90% for a couple minutes with a minute or two of cooldown between peaks.
Generally it's not a problem. Your body won't let you work hard enough to damage it (lots of caveats here from cross-fit people who somehow manage to develop rhabdomyolysis). You will develop loss of willpower/overwhelming exhaustion before you can work to your limits. If you are just getting active then yes you can injure yourself easily, but probably for different reasons.
Big caveat here You can train to ignore your body's signals. Cross-fitters do it, free divers do it, endurance swimmers do it, and lots of others. If you are one of those people you can absolutely hurt yourself to the point of death. But if you are not explicitly training to ignore your bodies safety signals you should be fine.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I haven't gotten my VO2Max (I'm not a runner or anything, and not sure how to test otherwise), but I've done one or two workouts where I pushed as hard as I could and my HR peaked at 190, wouldn't go higher. At that point I got dizzy and lightheaded, so I'm assuming that's my max. I seem to be fine up to 185-186, just heart pounding and out of breath after a short time at that pace.
Anything between 150 and 160 I can pretty much maintain, maybe not indefinitely, but for a comfortably long duration. And my resting heart rate seems to be around 48-50 overnight during sleep, and in the low-to-mid 60s if I'm just relaxing.
———
Edit - regarding your edit/caveat, I usually still have gas in the tank, so to speak, after my cardio sessions. I could keep going in most cases, but I’m not trying to hurt myself, and a 60 minute workout (my usual length) seems good enough.
My weightlifting workouts by contrast seem easier during them and my heart rate stays low, but after I wrap them up I feel completely gassed usually.
1800doctorb@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Another question to ask is what device are you using for your heart rate monitor?
Chest straps are the gold standard, some wrist straps are reliable, and I’d be dubious of max hr readings from a wrist watch. They tend to get caught reading your cadence as a heartbeat, and it can cause some weird fluctuations.
Then, as described above, your next step is to understand your max heart rate. The typical formula is 220-age, but I’ve found that it can definitely miss the mark. I’m 40 and had my heart rate hit 195 on a 5k race this past year as I was booking it towards the finish line.
Finally, it helps to know if there are any underlying cardio respiratory issues that would impact the strength of your heart.
I would say, in my situation, there’s little to no risk of hitting the 180’s when my max is in the 190’s, I can go that fast without causing joint pain or injury, and I have no underlying issues that would exacerbate my risk. Everyone’s different, but if you check those boxes too, then I’d say you should be fine.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Could be it's the watch, it's a Garmin Vivoactive 6.
I've ignored one-off high readings that only last for like a second spike, I'm going by specific heart rates that I peak at and sustain that I can monitor for a few seconds even if I stop moving.
Same, and by that metric I'd be dead. 😂 I've hit 190 bpm, and regularly get into the 180s, but standard metric would have my absolute max in the 170s. I can sustain 170 bpm for several minutes without even feeling too stressed.
No issues there, good heart health. Occasionally high triglyceride profile (depends heavily on what I eat the day before a lipid panel) and frequent slightly lower than optimal "good" cholesterol on my lipids, but that's about it. Overall cholesterol is low, and my doc gave me a clean bill of health with my heart (literally saw the doctor this morning for my annual checkup, awaiting my blood work later this week).
DrBob@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
I've never had my VO2max done either. I relied on Jack Daniel's VDOT tables which take a race time and work backwards to estimate the VMax needed for the time. For runners the HRM estimate came from running hill intervals. Find a nice long moderately steep hill - it should be a 1-2 minute sprint up. Then start running. Do a little 2 mile moderate pace warmup which ends at your hill. Sprint up at 100% perceived effort, jog down, and do that until you're vomiting. It's usually 4-5 reps. Whatever your peak was would be within a few beats of HRM.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
There is no one-size-fits-all answer really. Though I have seen different websites say that 180+ is dangerously high for our age group.
As always, talk to a doctor about this. They will be able to give you a definitive answer.
In the meantime, my anecdotal arm-chair advice is this: if it’s concerning to you, don’t do it.
Or to put it another way: if you have to ask, then I think you know your answer.
And I mean both of those sincerely and not sarcastically.
Best of luck!
Madison420@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Correct, if you're having concerns a stress EKG around 45 is usually covered if your doctor words and codes it correctly.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14h
I’m still on the sunnier side of 50, probably not covered now, but I’ll keep this in mind for the future.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Hah, asking here because I talked to my doc about it at an appointment today and they couldn't give me an answer. Guess I'm gonna need to find a specialist.
It's been fine and my energy levels are good, and I enjoy the workouts. Just wasn't sure if it was potentially problematic because as you noted, it's a high heart rate for my age. My max HR seems to be around 188-190.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Honestly I’m pretty much in the same boat as you. My heart rate easily gets up to 180+ when I’m doing anything perceivably intense. It freaks me out too, so I simply back off until it comes back down.
It’s possible I’m a little too cautious. So there’s that. 😊
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Yeah, same. That's why I posted. If my HR gets too high I back off, but when I'm doing intense cardio, it just happens. Takes a bit for my heart rate to ramp up initially, but with my workouts it's pretty much a steady climb unless I back off intermittently.
someguy3@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
Note I am not knowledgeable about this.
I'd think if you're new back to the gym, you should take it easy and ramp up.
If you've been doing this for decades and it's not like a chunk of cholesterol is going to suddenly break off in your arteries, then it's the norm for you.
Also HIIT should not be lasting an hour.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
I'm not new to it, have been lifting weights since I was 30, so well over a decade. I've only been doing cardio heavily for the last year or two, after an injury put me off weights for a while.
Also to be fair, I call it HIIT, but I'm just playing really hard DDR songs for an hour. The dips and spikes are the cooldown between picking songs. 😂
I've found maybe I'm hitting my cap currently. Over time I've been doing harder and harder tracks, and over time I get better, my HR goes lower during workouts, and then I start pushing harder tracks again, gets easier over time, lower heart rate, repeat.
Also not sure if it matters, but it feels like if my heart rate is staying under 160, it's completely unchallenging, like I'm not making an effort.
albbi@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 1d
Haha, I'm mid 40's too and still boot up DDR every once in a while! Love to hear from a kindred spirit!
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14h
Yeah, I loved DDR as a teen but decades of apartment living made it a no-go. I had a house built in 2021 and after a bad elbow injury put me off weights for a year I needed something more interesting after my treadmill died. Wife reminded me of DDR and I dove back in.
I use ITGMania with an DDR-based frontend and have it on my Steam Deck to dock to the TV. Zenius-vanished forum and stepmaniaonline.net have a huge mix of both the original stuff and user made SM files.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Examples from my most recent workout:
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1d
I wonder if those zones are actually well-tuned to your heart rate.
Any workout that could score that high of an exercise load and exercise effect on both aerobic and anaerobic for me would basically have me floored for multiple days.
How hard would you say this effort was? What kind of an effort was it?
EDIT: To add - it's been mentioned in other places in the thread, but heart rate is highly individual. The advice of 220 - age being your max heart rate is so off it's kind of not even funny.
Heart rate when measured only by a watch can be a bit hit and miss - for truly accurate data you want a heart rate strap or an armband-based monitor. This is only really important if you're truly interested in optimizing though, so if it's not, feel free to not bother. Watch sensors can tend to over- or under-read though, especially when there's plenty of arm movement involved.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
High effort overall, with intermittent lower effort if I need to back off. Workout is a 45-60 minute Dance Dance Revolution session, doing the hardest songs I can, occasionally broken up with some mid-difficulty songs if my HR gets too high. The track list is custom from online stepmania stuff, so longer songs in many cases and harder than a lot of the stuff in the original games.
Heart rate drops fairly quickly between songs, as you can see on the graph I posted in the comments.
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1d
Did you make the call to take a mid-difficulty song because you saw the heart rate number on your watch and got concerned, or did you feel physically unable to continue at the prior intensity?
If I were you, I would try to figure out what your actual max heart rate is, then tune the watch settings based on that. There are various test protocols you can do to figure that out, and it's possible to do it in lab conditions if you want to be really safe about it.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14h
It varies. Some of the tracks are really hard, so I’ll take a minute to let my heart rate drop back to between 150 and 160 before starting another track.
Not fully unable to continue usually, but a bit out of breath after intense effort, so I take maybe 30 seconds to catch my breath before continuing.
VibeSurgeon@piefed.social · 2 pts · 13h
You should expect an effort near your maximum heart rate to be the kind of deal where you basically have to lie down and hyperventilate. They are very, very painful to do.
If you don't feel like that description fits with how it felt to hit 180, then it's quite possible you have a maximum heart rate that is higher than that.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 13h
Gotcha, yeah, it’s not like that. More of the standing, hands on knees heavy breathing for a few seconds while I catch my breath. I’ll be gasping at the end of a really hard track, likely as the difficulty moves toward anaerobic near the end, but never like I need a lie down. My heart rate drops pretty quickly as soon as a song ends.
Edit - what you’re talking regarding hyperventilate and lie down is what it feels like if I try to push and sustain anything around 188-190. I start getting lightheaded and have to stop. Anything between 175 and 185 bpm is okay for short periods. The highest reading I’ve ever seen on my watch for my heart rate was 192.
OldGrayDog@fedinsfw.app · 3 pts · 1d
I'm curious what your resting heart rate is?
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
I'm not sure which is the correct measurement.
According to my Garmin watch, my resting heart rate is 49 bpm over the last year average, and 48 bpm in the past month.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 1d
You're fine with that resting. One thing to note is that if you're low carb or exercising fasted, the heart runs better on ketones (cleaner fuel) but has more work to do (fat->liver->ketones->muscles and direct fat->muscles instead of in-situ glycogen->muscles) so runs about +10BPM in cardio. Known phenomena and actually a good sign heart health wise.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Good to know. I'm not doing keto, but I have a relatively low carb diet because I'm a type 2 diabetic (well controlled, IIRC my last A1c was 5.7). I exercise in the afternoon/evenings, so never fasted.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 1d
If you want the nitty gritty (or feel the need to convince a doctor) check out "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance" by Phinney and Volek. Pretty much the bible on the subject. Fair warning, technical, but a good reference.
Thanks for making me look, turns out there's a "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living" now that I'll be checking out, might be more accessible. Ignore the overheated blurb on the back, these guys are serious scientists, seems their publishers are not.
OldGrayDog@fedinsfw.app · 2 pts · 1d
Your resting hr looks good. Do you keep track of your blood work I.e. cholesterol, triglycerides, a1c, salt intake, highly processed foods, ldl and hdl levels. If you're concerned consult a cardiologist. Your primary should be tracking all of that, but if not request a lipid panel. Also how are your stress levels, do you practice any meditation? Do you get enough sleep? All of these can affect your heart health.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I do, but not all frequently. I'm a T2 diabetic, so I'm generally on top of my glucose levels, but the lipids I only check annually. LDL is good, HDL is usually slightly lower than I'd like, triglycerides have varied, sometimes good, sometimes really bad, seems entirely dependent on what I've eaten before my blood work. I have a lipid panel and other stuff coming up this week.
Salt intake is low, I don't avoid it or seek it in my diet. Most of the seasonings we cook with are salt free.
Sleep is fine. I have sleep apnea, but use a CPAP without issues and my numbers are great, and I generally get around 7 hours a night, sometimes more on weekends. Stress levels... uh, probably worse than normal given *gestures wildly at everything* but generally good. I'm a somewhat high-strung individual, but I've worked a lot on my anxiety and triggers over the years.
OldGrayDog@fedinsfw.app · 2 pts · 6h
It sounds like you're doing the right stuff. The only other advice I can give is to work on stress and try not to keep it inside. Also keep track of blood pressure. I brought all of this stuff up because I didn't pay attention to my stress and paid the price last year when I had a heart attack. All of my numbers were good, but I keep my stress inside and have a lot of anxiety and it caught up to me. If you have any chest pain even if it seems minor, talk to your doctor about it and if you have any kind of indigestion issues that are persistent also talk to your doctor. We're all different and my issues may not be yours, but if something isn't feeling right talk to your doctor.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 11h
I'm 47. I routinely hit 180bpm during max effort sprints on my road bike. I've been riding about 150 miles a week going on 17 years now, so it's going to depend on your fitness level.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
Wouldn't want to say that it's fine, but it is common in our age range if you're just getting back into exercise. My doctor wasn't worried about it early on and I'm close to your age. Into anecdotal territory, it does feel kinda worrying if you're at that rate after a few years of cardio though. Mine improved quite a bit over a comparatively short period.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
It's with increasing intensity over time, not staying high over the same effort. As it got easier, I pushed harder, as over time I found it harder to get my heart rate up. It's pretty high intensity for the duration. Been heavily focused on cardio for the last year, prior was mostly weightlifting.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
I had been lifting longer too, but it really did almost nothing for my heart rate. Ya know, obvious overlap, but the heart is a muscle and those are different muscles.
For me, I did the whole trainer thing and got a program with a goal of increasing my cardiovascular health. Mostly running and cycling, but after a few months, I could be going all out and my monitor would show me maxing out in the 140s. If you feel like you're progressing though, it might be fine.
Do you feel like there's been improvements in your resting heart rate since you started doing more cardio?
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Definitely, my resting heart rate used to be much higher, upper 50s to low 60s. It dropped dramatically after I started seriously doing cardio (treadmill work mostly, and more recently the DDR stuff).
RaoulDook@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Sounds like a lot to me. My smartwatch recently told me that I needed to go rest for 10 hours, after I did some hard exercise for around an hour or more where my HR was in the 130's mostly. But I was out in the heat and getting exhausted.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 13h
Depends on your max heart rate. it's individual, some folks have heart max rates much higher/lower than others.
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Do you consume dietary risk factors for heart attack? Do you consume cannabis before or while working out? If no to both, I don't think it's a real concern.
tomkatt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
No. I occasionally take a CBD pill or muscle rub on off days for soreness, but smoking/vaping cannabis has never agreed with me.