High heart rate (90%) when doing cardio after weights?

ehimass

Hi,

I'm a 30 year old man, 6'0" currently 225 pounds, down from 290 6 months ago.

I've been doing a weight lifting program for about 5 weeks now called "all pro" which is 4 reps each of squats, bench press, overhead row, overhead press, deadlift, curls, and calf raises.

I still like to do about 80 minutes of cardio right after the weights if I can. However, today I felt absolutely sapped after the weights.

I measured my heart rate on an elliptical machine and it was over 170 after 5 minutes even though I was going 10% slower than I had the day before (my heart rate was about 155 bpm the day before). There were similar results on the treadmill.

I only made it through an hour of cardio until I was beat and couldn't do any more. I weighed myself when I got home and I had lost 7 pounds in the 2 hours I was in the gym, presumably from sweat.

Is this normal, is it OK to have worse cardio output after weights, or could something else, like the temperature of the room be affecting me? It felt about 80 degrees in the gym because someone had inexplicably opened some windows. I haven't had this effect on other days after lifting. My food diary is open and comments are welcome. I'm trying to eat about 1500 calories per day but my running average is probably closer to 1800.

Azdak

I'll spare you the deluge of random speculation that is sure to follow by saying that, in the absence of additional data or a duplication of this effect under different conditions, the difference is almost certainly the heat of the room, resulting in dehydration.

OkieTink

If I ate 1500 calories and did 80 minutes of cardio after lifting I'd bonk too.

davideickelmann

It was hot, and your caloric deficit must be massive.

ehimass

Thanks for the responses, in retrospect I do think the heat was probably the main factor. I have no idea why people feel the need to open the windows in an air conditioned gym when it's 80+ and 90% humidity outside. Then again I guess it just goes to show how out of shape I am that I can't exercise effectively in hot weather. Yesterday with the room properly cooled, I did 82 minutes no problem with higher output, granted I did not lift beforehand.

Azdak

Thanks for the responses, in retrospect I do think the heat was probably the main factor. I have no idea why people feel the need to open the windows in an air conditioned gym when it's 80+ and 90% humidity outside. Then again I guess it just goes to show how out of shape I am that I can't exercise effectively in hot weather. Yesterday with the room properly cooled, I did 82 minutes no problem with higher output, granted I did not lift beforehand.

I don't know that "conditioning" is the main factor. Bill Rodgers, one of the top marathoners in the world in the mid 1970s - early 1980s could not tolerate the heat either. He finished 40th in the 1976 Olympic Marathon, despite being the US record holder at the time.