Max heart rate in HIIT

wendy1024

Hi there- I'm doing interval training on my own and wear a HR monitor. When in high-intervals I easily hit 80%+ of max heart rate and wondered if it's safe to go higher? To 90% or even 100%?? I'm 47, in generally good health, -no heart concerns.

Sued0nim

I think heart rate zones have been debunked

saphin

I get this as well; my resting pulse is low but my working pulse often equals or exceeds my theoretical maximum (I'm 50 and regularly get to a HR in the mid 180s on a cycle ride). I worked with a doctor with specialities that included sports medicine and checked with him. It was a long chat, but his assessment was that the common formulae of limiting your efforts to 80% of you MHR (220 minus your age) is a good guide for the general population, but if you exercise regularly it may not apply. As a rough guide, you would be nauseous and have trouble speaking if you were working over 80 to 85% MHR. His recommendation was 'If you can sustain the effort without breathing difficulties and /or chest pain, you are working within your limits'. If you have a family history of CV disease or are in any doubt, please get a full stress test (including EKG) done at a hospital or sports medicine clinec
Edited to add: DO NOT let your pulse rate exceed 200!

brianpperkins

HIIT is conducted at maximal effort during the work periods ... usually in the 95% + of tested and properly calculated max HR. 220-age is not accurate enough for this purpose. If you're healthy and your doctor concurs, there are exercise based tests to figure max HR ... cycling, running, and sprinting.

3dogsrunning

rabbitjb wrote: »

I think heart rate zones have been debunked

No, not really.
HR zones for the purpose of "fat loss" has been pretty much debunked. While there is a "fat burning zone", it doesn't end up with an overall benefit to stay in the zone.
But using HR zones for training is legit and can be very useful.

OP - as Brian said, there are tests you can do to better figure your max HR. Mine is higher than what the default settings on my HRM say it should be.

sijomial

wendy1024 wrote: »

Hi there- I'm doing interval training on my own and wear a HR monitor. When in high-intervals I easily hit 80%+ of max heart rate and wondered if it's safe to go higher? To 90% or even 100%?? I'm 47, in generally good health, -no heart concerns.

Have you done a max HR test to determine your actual maximum?
Actually hitting your real 100% is way different to getting to 80 or 90%. It's why a real HIIT session (as opposed to workouts misleadingly given the HIIT tag) are so taxing.

Working2BLean

Iron Fit by Melanie Fink is a decent book that gets into heart rate zone training and how to calculate a close approximation then how to exercise to find your actual HRM. It also goes in to your running HRM and cycling HRM. Melanie has completed many Iron Man triathlons and has a great way of communicating in book form that makes her book very useful versus just being filled with facts.

The two training zone HRM max are a little different based on muscle recruitment and how much you can actually push your CV system using only your legs cycling vs running. Cycling is usually 5% lower.

HIIT intervals of 2:30 moderate and 30 seconds sprinting, 8 intervals should exhaust you and be drenched.

90% intervals are fine and if they are working you hard then maybe step up a few percent. Step it up gradually. Those 100% intervals will kick your butt...

Congrats on the hard work thus far!

robertw486

Personally, I'd suggest that max heart rate regardless of how it is being reached is a subject to be taken up with your doctor or cardiologist if you deal with one. Standard formula's that are used are based on averages, often taking into consideration "average" people that don't work out all that much. I would also think that any informed opinion would require some type of testing, otherwise there is a good chance it's simply a doctor or specialist reverting to standardized methods that may or may not apply to any specific individual.

I exceed 80% doing straight cardio at times, but have been stress tested on a treadmill. As for any true HIIT, I'd probably go slightly above that, but not by much. Depending on the HIIT protocol people use, the brief recovery period and short max effort period is really not a lot of time to get HR up unless they were already in a state of reasonably heavy workload with the steady state stuff.