Question about heart rate

jontywontytong

I started working out 2 months ago 37 year old male been a couch potato for past 10 years so when I do cardio my heart rate goes up to 170-180 for the hour I'm working out I read somewhere my max heart rate should be 220 minus my age so that's 183 is it safe for me to keep working at this pace

MeanderingMammal

As long as you're not feeling any ill effects.

220-age is a pretty crude estimate, so meaningless in most people.

fwiw at 46 I'd anticipate about 175bpm for a 10k race

BrianSharpe

Forget 22-your age, it was completely arbitrary and was originally intended for sedentary recovering heart attack patients.

If you're not feeling dizzy and gasping for breath I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. As your fitness improves you will probably find your HR dropping for exercise at the same intensity as you're doing now and your resting HR will also probably drop.

A little OT but something that may interest you.....track your recovery times. That's another solid sign of improved fitness when your heart rate recovers more quickly after exercise (most obvious when doing intervals)

robertw486

BrianSharpe wrote: »

Forget 22-your age, it was completely arbitrary and was originally intended for sedentary recovering heart attack patients.

If you're not feeling dizzy and gasping for breath I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. As your fitness improves you will probably find your HR dropping for exercise at the same intensity as you're doing now and your resting HR will also probably drop.

A little OT but something that may interest you.....track your recovery times. That's another solid sign of improved fitness when your heart rate recovers more quickly after exercise (most obvious when doing intervals)

Great points. I've actually found that as I improved my cardio base it's been harder and harder to push hard enough to get my HR up near max. When I was out of shape it was easy!

And I've never worried much about the formula's. Some people can push a really high HR without issue.