High Heart Rate

Ahluvly

Hello,

Right...I could do with some sound advice. I'm 31 and use a HRM for my gym classes. It's not uncommon for my heart rate to climb up to the 180s but I feel extremely uncomfortable when it gets this high.

As of 10 days ago I've cleaned up my diet, reduced carbs (only 2 evening meals, none for lunch), cut out the stimulants, treats and alchol. I'm also trying to have 2/3 portions of fish a week too. I have noticed my HR is climbing up to the top 170s and early 180s a lot quicker now. Is this a normal response?


The reason why I changed my diet was based on professional advice and to get my body out of fat storage mode!

MelanieAG05

mine goes up to 170 occasionally when I'm using weights and putting in masses of effort to lift them lol. usually when doing cardio it gets up to about 162.

Ahluvly

During Spinning mine is up SO much throughout the hour! I have to go like a snail for it to be around the 140 mark which really is the fat burning zone! I keep getting a train "much less" in zone 3 message on my polar ft60!! Eeeek!

monkeymouse74

My heart rate also climbs into high 170s low 180s during cardio, the trainer at the gym said it was fine as long as I could still respond to them with words (even if they're breathless). But when they get responses by way of a nod or shake of the head, that's a problem.

I think it's always a good idea to have it checked out by your doctor if you dont feel comfortable about anything like that. I had a full heart check a year ago, including bloods, ecg, ecg stress and a ultrasound scan (but I have serious heart issue's in the family).

ShefMum

Hi,

From what I know from cycling (I'm not a professional), your body gets more efficient at working ie pumping oxygen to the major muscle groups as you get fit, and this would fit with your heart rate climbing faster - BUT, your heart-rate should also be dropping noticeably faster when you stop doing the hard exercise to compensate for this. so you could measure your pulse immediately after, then 1 and 2 mins after and monitor this...

When you say you are "uncomfortable" when your heart-rate is/was high in the 180s exactly what do you mean?? If you have any phsyical symptoms that you are concerned about you should definitely consult your GP and get your blood pressure etc checked out, just in case.

I find it difficult to work in the traditional "fat-burning" zone as well, but I also like being/feeling fit, which means aerobic work as well. For my circuits exercise (10 mins weights lifted above head as step up on step) she put my heart-rate down as 122bpm!! but it's usually around 160bpm by the time I finish. I'd have to do it really slowly to keep it so low. And I'm not unfit - my stamina is good.

rides4sanity

My heart rate seems to naturally run high, my HR during intense cardio such as spin class is typically in the 180s but I can still carry a conversation which means I'm still aerobic not anaerobic. When I go anaerobic I've had my HR as high as 202 (hill sprint). This being said I did discuss this with my doc to make sure things were good. She was more concerned with my recovery rate (how quickly it drops after exurtion) and my resting rate both of which were good.

I guess what I'm getting at is that there are those of us that run high, so it isn't weird or unusual, but you should check it out.

karenmi

Here's something that was posted a few months back regarding the whole "fat burning zone" theory:

There's a lot of misinformation out there about exercise and nutrition. As an ongoing feature, I'll ask experts in those fields about their pet fitness peeves—commonly believed myths that are just plain wrong. This week, I asked Cedric Bryant, chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise, for the facts about the so-called fat-burning zone.

Myth: I will lose body fat more efficiently by working out in the fat-burning zone—doing my aerobic workouts at a low, rather than high, intensity.

Explanation: Many aerobic exercise programs and videos feature low-intensity workouts purporting to maximize fat burning. The argument is that low-intensity aerobic training will allow your body to use more fat as an energy source, thereby accelerating the loss of body fat. While it is true that a higher proportion of calories burned during low-intensity exercise come from fat (about 60 percent as opposed to approximately 35 percent from high-intensity programs), high-intensity exercise still burns more calories from fat in the final analysis.

For example, if you perform 30 minutes of low-intensity aerobic exercise (i.e., at a level of 50 percent of maximal exercise capacity), you'll burn approximately 200 calories. About 120 of those, or 60 percent, come from fat. However, exercising for the same amount of time at a high intensity (i.e., 75 percent of your maximal exercise capacity) will burn approximately 400 calories, and 35 percent of them, or 140 calories, will come from stored fat. So by sticking to the fat-burning zone for their workouts, many individuals are wasting valuable time. Keep in mind that you lose weight and body fat when you expend more calories than you consume, not because you burn fat (or anything else) when you exercise.

Of course, the less intense form of exercise has its benefits as well. For example, because many overweight people tend to find that lower-intensity exercise is more comfortable, they may, therefore, be willing to engage in such workouts. The point to remember is that low-intensity workouts do, in fact, promote weight and fat loss. You just have to do them for a longer period of time.

CoderGal

The first question is what's your resting heart rate. At 5'7 and 140 pounds mine was about 110 and taking my sweet time walking up a hill immediately spiked to about 189 on my HRM. I've passed out at the gym before and the first question was did you eat. The answer was I ate 2 filling meals and waited a hour. I was talking to a doctor friend and he told me to get blood work immediately and that I probably needed to get put on *some sort of pill name goes here*. I told him to give me a few weeks and if it was still above 100 I would. I started hiking sometimes multiple times a day, ultra easy if I was alone and I'd push myself harder if someone else was around (just in case I passed out again). My resting heart rate went down to about 90ish. I finished my semester and it suddenly dropped to 60-70. I'm back in semester and it's creeping up again (never below 80). So if I were to take a wild stab I'd say it's your activity level, diet, stress related, or it could be really serious.