Heart rate and fitness

KelBlundell

Hi ya'll, I'm curious about heart rate and fitness.

I am 39. Since Jan I have lost circa 40lbs and massively increased my exercise. I used to cycle 7 miles every other day and pilates, now I cycle 15 twice a week and one 25 mile. Plus I kickbox three times a week. Plus pilates. I still have 25lbs to go.

Back in Jan/Feb my resting heart rate was 60 odd and my exercise would generate 160-170 top.

However I've noticed my resting heart rate has dropped to average 56 and my exertion heart rate rarely gets above 150 now.

I'm curious, do I need to push myself harder or is this a sign I'm getting fitter and just chill about it?

Thanks for reading!

lx1x

If you want to increase hr.. yes.. push harder..

It's normal when hr is lower than it used to be.. body has caught up to your routine hense hr is lower.

heybales

It may be just as hard a workout on the muscles or more, it just means it's not as hard a workout on the cardiovascular system anymore.
But you did lose weight, so pushing less mass means it is easier for the body, increase of work load should occur to compensate.

It does mean you are burning more ratio of fat as fuel than carbs - if the intensity (work load) is the same.
Means you can go longer usually.

And this means you can go harder and it can feel about the same - depends though, like running faster pace does feel like more pounding usually, faster on hills biking can feel harder.

Lietchi

You've gotten fitter, perfectly normal. If you keep doing the same intensity of exercise, your fitness level will probably level off/not progress as much anymore. Depending on your goals, that can be fine or you can up the intensity of your exercise to keep on improving your fitness level.

sijomial

Resting HR does indeed typically reduce with CV fitness improvements but maximum HR tends to stay roughly the same. Not that most people actually test their maximal effort HR.

But remember your better trained heart is pumping more blood with every stroke all the way from RHR to max HR. (It's one of the problems for people using HR for calorie estimates, there's a huge difference between individuals or even the same individual with a changing fitness level.)

e.g. my RHR dropped by 20% (60 to 48) but the power I can produce at typical exercise intensities has gone up by about 25 - 30%. So for the same exertion level I'm cycling much faster.

The answer to "do I need to push myself harder" depends on your fitness goals. As regards cycling if you want to be faster over a short distance then your training (and your resulting HR) would be very different than if your goal was long duration endurance.

KelBlundell

Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I'm happy to up the exercise, I love it if I can fit it in. I was just curious as to the change. I'll tackle bigger hills!