Suddenly can't hit Max heart rate during HIIT?!

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eilatanselaznog
eilatanselaznog Posts: 10 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Ive been doing HIIT a few times a week and for some reason the past week and a half I've had a ridiculously hard time getting my heart rate up?! I've been doing this on and off for a few months now. I was always able to get my heart rate up to the 190's. Lately I'll feel like I'm really pushing myself and when I check my heart rate I'll only be around 160's!! Which is NOTHING (for me at least.) I don't understand why this is happening?? Is it just in my head?? I'll seriously be really pushing myself and I'll think "ok, my heart rates gotta be up to 175." I'll check my hr monitor and alas, it's only 155-160. Does it get harder to raise your heart rate the more in shape you become? Or what?! Maybe I'm not eating enough? This is soooo discouraging for me! Any help is greatly appreciated!

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  • scottb81
    scottb81 Posts: 2,538 Member
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    eilatanselaznog wrote: »
    Does it get harder to raise your heart rate the more in shape you become? Or what?! Maybe I'm not eating enough?
    Yes it does.

    Also, if you have good aerobic fitness then you have to be pretty well rested to be able to push your body hard enough to get to max HR.

    Another thing that may or may not apply, if you are chronically underrecovered then your heart will not respond normally to increased effort.

  • terricherry2
    terricherry2 Posts: 222 Member
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    It means your body is becoming more efficient at getting oxygen to your muscles so your heart doesn't need to work as hard. So you're getting fitter basically. I'm sure there's more science to it but that's all I remember from human biology classes!
  • sofaking6
    sofaking6 Posts: 4,589 Member
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    Do you do the same routine over and over? Your body may have adjusted to it and become more efficient. Some ways to combat that are to do different moves, or add weights to your workout.
  • alekth
    alekth Posts: 33 Member
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    It's normal for your body to start working at a lower HR for the same thing, and age also lowers it, but neither of these will make 30 bpm vanish from one day to the next. My first check would be the HRM itself. This issue manifests on mine when there isn't good contact, but battery dying would be my first guess. Battery running out on mine led to very infrequent polling and with HIIT that would be even less accurate. Try a different one/give yours to some key else to try, do some different exercises. You can always try (unless you have knee problems) uphill run intervals. Might take a few if you're in a very good shape, but it cannot fail to get you close to your max.
  • alejandro_08
    alejandro_08 Posts: 25 Member
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    Everyone here is making great points! Your heart isn't working as hard now thus the lower max rate I wouldn't be surprised of your resting heart rate was lower as well. The nurses always have to tell me to think of something exciting because my HR is always in the 50s lol. But yeah if your documenting your workouts (hopefully you are!) Then try to do the same routine in a shorter amount of time, or with more weight, or do more reps. If you can incorporate all three then you shouldn't have a problem sky rocketing that HR up. I don't do HIIT but I do High Intensity Training the way Arthur Jones preached it, but that's a whole other story lol!!

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