Low max heart rate?

mariabee

I am not seeking medical advice and I am more curious than concerned about this. Here is my question:

I read a lot of posts about fitness/exercise and I see a lot of people saying their max heart rate during exercise reaches 170, 180, 190, or sometimes more!!! I do not know each of these people personally, so I don't know if they are in the same boat as I am physically, but, when I exercise, at full efforts, and I mean really giving it full-force (i.e. during my HIIT workouts) my absolute max heart rate gets to about 149-150. If I hit 151 I am ecstatic! I do not feel faint or light headed, but I'm definitely huffing and puffing.

My resting heart rate is in the mid-high 40's, so I can understand that my max shouldn't be near 200, but I'm curious if I should be pushing it even more? I don't know if my legs can move any faster/harder.

Does anyone have the same issue? Or any advice? Should I just accept that this is the way my body works?

I am struggling to lose the last 10 pounds.

Height 5'5"
Weight 142
Non-smoker
I assume I am in excellent but definitely above average physical condition.
Not sure if this matters: **I was hyper-thyroid many years ago that lead to hypo-thyroid, but I have been stable for many years now.

Thank you in advance.

crux

It's hard to say what your max should be, but the most used formula is 220-your age as a rough guideline.

But with regards to effort, when I hit my max heart rate it's more than huff and puff, if I try to sustain max heart rate for more than a few seconds I'll feel on the verge of falling down with shear cardiovascular overload/exhaustion.

MayMaydoesntrun

You are fine. No worries.

AlsDonkBoxSquat

I am not seeking medical advice and I am more curious than concerned about this. Here is my question:

I read a lot of posts about fitness/exercise and I see a lot of people saying their max heart rate during exercise reaches 170, 180, 190, or sometimes more!!! I do not know each of these people personally, so I don't know if they are in the same boat as I am physically, but, when I exercise, at full efforts, and I mean really giving it full-force (i.e. during my HIIT workouts) my absolute max heart rate gets to about 149-150. If I hit 151 I am ecstatic! I do not feel faint or light headed, but I'm definitely huffing and puffing.

My resting heart rate is in the mid-high 40's, so I can understand that my max shouldn't be near 200, but I'm curious if I should be pushing it even more? I don't know if my legs can move any faster/harder.

Does anyone have the same issue? Or any advice? Should I just accept that this is the way my body works?

I am struggling to lose the last 10 pounds.

Height 5'5"
Weight 142
Non-smoker
I assume I am in excellent but definitely above average physical condition.
Not sure if this matters: **I was hyper-thyroid many years ago that lead to hypo-thyroid, but I have been stable for many years now.

Thank you in advance.

It's hard to say what your max should be. I'm 5'3", non-smoker, my resting hr is 46 - 49 and the max I could push it (when around 160#) was between 190 - 200. Now at a sleek and muscular 125 I get excited when I see 185 on my watch (I hit 186 on Monday while teaching my step class and about peed myself).

kunibob

My resting HR is 46, and I have a similar problem. My heavy intensity exercise tends to sit in the 140-160 range, when my max HR should apparently be 190. Regular, I-can-still-talk exercise tends to sit around 110-120. I do seem to get up to about 170 if I start doing very heavy burst movements after exercising at ~140 for about an hour, and I still haven't quite wrapped my head around why that is.

I have wondered how this impacts the calorie readout on my HRM. Are we actually burning fewer calories with our lower HRs, or is it skewed?

bregalad5

This has been something I've been curious about as well. My resting heart rate is around 70. I just started the C25k program (did week 1 day 3, so I'm a complete noob at it) and my HRM tells me that the highest I've ever gotten is 179. When I go over 170 I feel like I'm about to fall over. Am I not exercising to the fullest extent possible, or am I doing something seriously wrong? Not looking for medical advice, just curious about opinions from those of you who have been at this longer than I have

mariabee

Thank you! I didn't know if I was alone... glad to see I'm not!

Have a great day everyone.