HIIT for older persons

Im lucky enough to have PT that was one of the very best runners from 5k and up to marathon. The first thing I learned from her was that resting heart rate and max heart rate is irrelevant. The only metric that was important was to find your Lactate threshold.

So my intervals is adjusted to my Lactate threshold. Some believe that your Lactate threshold can change over time, but its actually fixed, so the only trainable aspect in that regard is how much work you can put in before you reach your threshold.

When I did the test, It was set to be between 174-177 bpm, and this is the max bpm i should have during a training run. In my case I will train up to/close to those numbers on my interval days.
Any harder than that is just counter productive, and I would be training to hard.

So my advice to you and to anyone else that wants to train smart, is to find your Lactate threshold, and be sure to keep your training up to but not over.
A big part of training smart is also to make sure to run easy on your easy days, and even easier on the long run days.

Consider seeking out a sports science facility (perhaps at a local univerisity or major health center) that will test you for HRmax, VO2max, lactate threshold, etc. Often there's a group of athletic tests offered as a package. Maybe I'm mistaken, but IIRC, I'm thinking this is not the first time you've asked a question about heart rate and exercise intensity?

Personally, I would not and could not profitably do max-effort intervals multiple times a week, and I think it would be pointless. I do fairly high intensity intervals pretty often (hitting the 70-90% of HRmax that the NYT article mentions, based on my tested HRmax, with the percents being heart rate reserve, not straight percent of HRmax).

The max effort intervals are exhausting, and not very compatible - for me - with good life balance. I've only really done them as an experiment, or part of race training (and I don't much race anymore).

Personally, I don't think high intensity workouts (intervals or otherwise) are different for old vs. young people. These are just my opinions, but I think it's a good plan for anyone to:

1. Get medical clearance before attempting intentional high intensity exercise (intervals or otherwise). This is doubly true for someone who's obese, and triply/quadruply/quintuply true for someone who has any cardiac risk factors or family history of cardiovascular difficulties.
2. Build reasonable base cardiovascular fitness by working consistently at lower intensity for a period of time (weeks to months) before incorporating any significant intentional high intensity work regularly.
3. Incorporate high intensity work gradually.
4. Pay attention to any indicators of overtraining, like persistent post-exercise fatigue or increase in resting heart rate.

To answer your explicit question: I'm 63, and have been pretty active for around 17 years, starting while still obese (and continuing for well over a decade while obese). After some initial conditioning, I've been willing to let my heart rate go all the way up to my tested HRmax, and I would've let it go over that tested max (and assumed the test was a little low) as long as I felt OK doing it.

In my experience, if my body doesn't want to or can't do something, it Just Won't. Repeating: I'm talking about being OK with this in a context where there are no additional negative symptoms beyond (maybe) being super-exhausted: No faintness, numbness, tingling, pain, etc., etc.

If I want to do max effort (I rarely do ), wherever my heart rate goes is fine with me. I don't worry about it at all.

The "what will happen if I push it too far" question doesn't really make sense to me: If I push as hard as I can (in Tabata format, say), my heart rate will go as high as it will go, and it won't go any higher. When it won't go any higher, if I keep pushing hard, I'll (loosely speaking) start reaching muscular underperformance because my muscles don't get the oxygen they demand, and eventually my muscles Just Won't. Therefore, I will slow down, no matter how hard I try not to slow down. After a while, I won't be able to do any more intervals. (I can't say I've ever kept going in Tabata past the standard 8x, but in my initial HRmax test I did keep going until my muscles Just Wouldn't.)

Afterwards, I'll feel (based on experience) oddly exhilarated for a while, and eventually unusually exhausted, especially after the exhilaration wears off. Speaking only for myself (doesn't happen to everyone), I'll also probably have post-exercise cough for the rest of the day (not exercise induced asthma, wrong symptom set; different thing).

I haven't noticed any negative side effects from pretty regularly doing high-ish intensity intervals (that 70%-90% thing). 70% of HRmax by the HR reserve method isn't all that high: I can do short-duration steady state (say, 10 minutes, probably more) at that quite easily (70% = 140bpm). 70% by the straight percent method is stupid easy (70% = 127bpm!). The NYT article doesn't clarify, but if they mean straight percent in the 70%-90% range, alternating 3 minutes on, 3 minutes moderate "rest", with a warmup at the start, for half an hour total, is "high intensity interval training" . . . well, it's hard to believe they'd mean that. That's just "intervals", in my book. I have to believe they mean heart rate reserve. (90%, OTOH, is pretty hard (and about the same number) in either scheme (for me - mid-160s).

I'm not sure if I'd be classed as older, I'm 47. Using the formula my max hr should be 178, but it has been known to peak at over 200 during a sprint session.
I do a lot of interval training of various types, mostly high intensity, and there's no way I'd go by hr. Partly because it takes a while for hr to catch up with effort, if I'm doing 20sec high effort/10 sec rest (or low) then it'd probably just be starting to peak as the rest interval finishes.
I go by perceived effort, and using the tabata protocol, that would be near enough max effort during work intervals, as in couldn't go any faster, punch any harder, have to fight to complete the exercise for the time and unable to talk even in rest intervals.
With longer work intervals, I would probably have a slightly lower effort, but by the end of the interval I feel just the same

sijomial wrote: »

firef1y72 wrote: »

I'm not sure if I'd be classed as older, I'm 47. Using the formula my max hr should be 178, but it has been known to peak at over 200 during a sprint session.
I do a lot of interval training of various types, mostly high intensity, and there's no way I'd go by hr. Partly because it takes a while for hr to catch up with effort, if I'm doing 20sec high effort/10 sec rest (or low) then it'd probably just be starting to peak as the rest interval finishes.
I go by perceived effort, and using the tabata protocol, that would be near enough max effort during work intervals, as in couldn't go any faster, punch any harder, have to fight to complete the exercise for the time and unable to talk even in rest intervals.
With longer work intervals, I would probably have a slightly lower effort, but by the end of the interval I feel just the same

@firefly72

Exactly right about the lag between effort and HR - below is from fairly long duration intervals (2 minute high effort) and shows how far behind the peaks in the red HR trace are behind the actual effort, blue trace is power.

<image snipped for length; see PP above>

HR is good data but needs to be in the right context. If someone actually wants to do HIIT then using a target max HR for the sprints isn't the way to do it.

I don't see it as a practical problem, once one understands the nature of one's HR response, and/or the relationship between pace, duration and (approximate) HR peak . . . especially if, as suggested in the NYT article, the target is a range (in their case, a pretty bleepin' wide range ). HR is the easiest thing to monitor, especially in activites without a power meter.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

firef1y72 wrote: »

I'm not sure if I'd be classed as older, I'm 47. Using the formula my max hr should be 178, but it has been known to peak at over 200 during a sprint session.
I do a lot of interval training of various types, mostly high intensity, and there's no way I'd go by hr. Partly because it takes a while for hr to catch up with effort, if I'm doing 20sec high effort/10 sec rest (or low) then it'd probably just be starting to peak as the rest interval finishes.
I go by perceived effort, and using the tabata protocol, that would be near enough max effort during work intervals, as in couldn't go any faster, punch any harder, have to fight to complete the exercise for the time and unable to talk even in rest intervals.
With longer work intervals, I would probably have a slightly lower effort, but by the end of the interval I feel just the same

@firefly72

Exactly right about the lag between effort and HR - below is from fairly long duration intervals (2 minute high effort) and shows how far behind the peaks in the red HR trace are behind the actual effort, blue trace is power.

<image snipped for length; see PP above>

HR is good data but needs to be in the right context. If someone actually wants to do HIIT then using a target max HR for the sprints isn't the way to do it.

I don't see it as a practical problem, once one understands the nature of one's HR response, and/or the relationship between pace, duration and (approximate) HR peak . . . especially if, as suggested in the NYT article, the target is a range (in their case, a pretty bleepin' wide range ). HR is the easiest thing to monitor, especially in activites without a power meter.

I think I share your problem with the article....
It's also a frustration we share with everything getting labelled as HIIT by the general population from a few burpees to any old varied intensity cardio in all its many forms.

Would agree that HR can be useful for longer duration intervals (I use it as a guide to ensure I can complete the interval mainly) but for all out sprints personally I see no worth in monitoring your HR except possibly in review. If you are going anaerobic HR becomes a moot point, you're "dying" after 15 seconds of a maximal effort sprint whatever your HR says.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

firef1y72 wrote: »

I'm not sure if I'd be classed as older, I'm 47. Using the formula my max hr should be 178, but it has been known to peak at over 200 during a sprint session.
I do a lot of interval training of various types, mostly high intensity, and there's no way I'd go by hr. Partly because it takes a while for hr to catch up with effort, if I'm doing 20sec high effort/10 sec rest (or low) then it'd probably just be starting to peak as the rest interval finishes.
I go by perceived effort, and using the tabata protocol, that would be near enough max effort during work intervals, as in couldn't go any faster, punch any harder, have to fight to complete the exercise for the time and unable to talk even in rest intervals.
With longer work intervals, I would probably have a slightly lower effort, but by the end of the interval I feel just the same

@firefly72

Exactly right about the lag between effort and HR - below is from fairly long duration intervals (2 minute high effort) and shows how far behind the peaks in the red HR trace are behind the actual effort, blue trace is power.

<image snipped for length; see PP above>

HR is good data but needs to be in the right context. If someone actually wants to do HIIT then using a target max HR for the sprints isn't the way to do it.

I don't see it as a practical problem, once one understands the nature of one's HR response, and/or the relationship between pace, duration and (approximate) HR peak . . . especially if, as suggested in the NYT article, the target is a range (in their case, a pretty bleepin' wide range ). HR is the easiest thing to monitor, especially in activites without a power meter.

I think I share your problem with the article....
It's also a frustration we share with everything getting labelled as HIIT by the general population from a few burpees to any old varied intensity cardio in all its many forms.

Would agree that HR can be useful for longer duration intervals (I use it as a guide to ensure I can complete the interval mainly) but for all out sprints personally I see no worth in monitoring your HR except possibly in review. If you are going anaerobic HR becomes a moot point, you're "dying" after 15 seconds of a maximal effort sprint whatever your HR says.

Ah - I misunderstood what you were saying. Yeah, "max effort" is "max effort", not "to heart rate X". Given how my concentration behaves by even round 5-7 of classic Tabata (i.e., mental equivalent of tunnel vision), I'd be hard pressed to monitor HR sensibly, anyway. The after-analysis shows that if I did well, I hit (or was very near) HRmax somewhere(s) in there, and in some sense I was trying for HRmax . . . but not monitoring in real time to see if I got there.

"Simple" high intensity (not max) intervals, I may be trying hard to drive to heart rate X by the end of the work interval . . . partly because it takes my mind off whether the immediate work feels good or not.

Afterthought: It's imprecise, but I tend to think of my spin classes as a sort of uneven-work-duration interval workout; that's more the context for "push to HR X". If I can get to HRmax on a spin bike, I haven't demonstrated that, as far as I can recall. Rowing machine, it's dead easy (for some values of "easy" ).

Part of the problem with HR is that, over time, parasympathetic tone increases so that HR is not as responsive to sudden changes in intensity. When I do intervals, my HR struggles to get to normal training levels, even at a 90+% effort.

By the way, it sounds like I should be wandering around with no trousers humming the songs of my youth but I'm only 41. And feel 28.

The only two rules of thumb I go by (after years or pushing too hard and getting sick or injured) are I only push as hard as I can around 1 or 2 times a month. Prepping for a race, I'll push 3 times a week pretty hard (but not quite max). Normal training through the year only two times a week really hard (around 90 to 95% max). I save absolute max for races and all my PBs have been in races except one.