target heartrate? High vs peak vs cardio

nis75p06

I borrowed my horse's HRM. I wanted to see what my heart rate was when jogging since I don't seem to be gaining much in the stamina department and just run out of gas too often. It is an older polar monitor, but still works perfect (I found the chest strap for me since I use long leads with stick-on electrodes for the horse). The receiver watch doesn't do anything except give the heart rate, and it matched the treadmill (which picked up the HRM too).

I'm currently 260 lbs. While on the treadmill, at a 3.4mph pace and 2% incline, my heartrate was at 160-ish (actually between 157 and 165). This is the pace I've been trying to jog at outside. The little chart on the treadmill said that was well into the "high" range. I have done as much as 2 miles at a stretch (outdoors) at this pace - tonight I was out of gas at a .5 mile, but after slowing down for a bit, I got another .5 mile at the same pace

When I slowed down the treadmill to get my heartrate into what the machine had as "fat-burning", I was barely trudging along. Do those numbers on the chart actually mean anything - the high/peak/cardio/fatburning? Is just strolling along at the pace to keep my heart rate in the "fat burning" zone going to do anything for me fitness/weight loss wise? And how high is too high?

CnocNaCu

What too high is depends on your age, weight and most of all resting heart rate. Before I lost weight and while I was still smoking my resting heart rate was around 100 and as soon as I started running it went up over 170 in no time. That was too high according to my dr.
Now that I am fit and have quit smoking my resting heart rate is just below 60 and when I am running to exhaustion (HIIT) then it can go up to and over 170 and it is fine and I'm not feeling as if I was already dead:laugh:
The heart rate zones are depending on your resting heart rate :RHR(check pulse or use your HRM before getting up in the morning). But what I would really do is:
-Don't trust what the treadmill is telling you unless you can enter gender, height, weight, age and RHR
-Ease in to your running and listen to your body. As you get fitter you can run longer and faster.
-Google: heart rate zones calculator . There you can calculate your zones IF you know your RHR
Good luck:drinker:

Mighty_Rabite

At the "fat burning" range, the percentage of calories your body is using from fat is higher.

In the "cardio" range, the body is not burning as many calories from fat, but is burning more overall.

I don't really buy into the "fat burning" range myself - when you burn those higher overall calories in the cardio zone, the body will still need to restock the calories burned from glycogen stores and whatnot - existent fat stores in the body are a great source for that!

BiancaShambrook

{SOS}

This is the forum I was looking for. YAY! *happy dance* I'm know everyone is different & the 'target heart rate chart' isn't going to apply to everyone, however I was curious if someone could shed some light on how I can make cardio easier? I feel like I'm dying during cardio BUT I generally ignore my body & just keep going. "Unless you puke, faint or die... keep going?"

I've only just discovered fitness (at age 22yo) & now I LOVE CARDIO! But I have to work seemingly double what everyone else does to achieve the same results. I just assume that Rome wasn't built in a day! I can run 5km - 10km... not easily mind you, I just push through the burn.

Last night I did my usual hike/trail & run combination with my new WAHOO BLUE bluetooth heartrate strap & my stats were:
2.52km (154m climb) in 31mins
367 calories burnt
Average heartrate of 196bpm
Max heart rate 207bpm

(My resting heartrate is 58-61bpm confirmed by my GP)

My personal stats:
I'm 24yo
Female
I'm 98kg ( but I'm trying to reduce that by about 30kg... I was 106kg EEK!)
5'7

I am literally built like a brick **** house with thick thighs & little waist & I have 58.2kg of muscle mass & the rest is good old FAT (ew!)... Is this why my heart-rate skyrockets so easily with cardio? (It usually recovers really fast within a few mins). I just don't want to be training dangerously however, if I abide by the target heart rates for fat burning - I'd literally be meandering at 2kph to try & keep my heart in that zone... that's not a fun workout at all! Pretty please HELP! I'm so new to all of this. I need all of your wisdom & advise.

B