New training program increased my resting heart rate 🤔

At what time of the day do you go run/walking? If you do it in the evening then it's maybe not totally surprising as adrenaline and other hormones stay in your system for quite a while and resting heartrate will be higher. (this assumes that Apple's definition of resting heartrate is the lowest during sleep). Do you eat more after your run/walk? Digestion during sleep might play a role. Alternative idea: You might simply be running a small infection. Does your watch do something like heartrate variation or stress level? If HRV is lower and stress level higher then this, or simple more stress during work might play a role. Lots of reasons, really.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Watches are not that accurate for heart rate and can be higher or lower depending on how tightly you are wearing it. Stress, lack of sleep or fighting off a cold can also raise your HR. Pay attention to how you feel during your walks and runs. It should feel easy. If it doesn't, slow down. If it does, then don't worry about the HR.

herblovinmom wrote: »

Well I’ve decided to just keep an eye on things and listen to my body. Take an extra rest day occasionally and slow down. My pace may have been too fast for my abilities. I don’t think I can carry on a conversation while running but somehow that’s an indicator of the correct pace. Running is still hard for me. It feels challenging, but at the same time, when walking I feel the urge to run so I’m just gonna keep training and see how I feel in a couple more weeks. Maybe my body will acclimate. I’m not overly concerned as I don’t have any other symptoms like fatigue or dizziness or racing heart beat, nothing that really warrants a doctor as of yet. It’s just frustrating when your trying to work towards your goals and things come up that slow you down. When I feel that motivation, that drive, I definitely wanna ride it out as I know the energy will ebb and flow. But listening to my body is important or else I won’t be able to train at all.
Thank you all that responded. I appreciate your opinions and insight.

Doing the right things may not be a faster pace on each run . . . but it will create faster progress (in calendar terms) toward the big goals.

IME, fitness really is similar to weight loss in that way: Aggression feels faster in the moment, but patient persistence and gradual changes really are the faster way calendar-wise to reaching the big goal (not just reaching a healthy weight, but also staying there long term).

You're not slowing your progress, you're reaching it in a smarter, more suitable way.

Best wishes!

@PTAnn77 - I'm sorry to read that you were injured. I hope the head heals quickly and completely. Being inactive must be hard for you. I'm glad you can still do the bike.

herblovinmom wrote: »

Just an update for those who commented on my increased resting heart rate…
It’s back to normal!.. Could have been attributed to the increased effort on my walk runs or possibly the cold virus I got shortly after the uptick on my trend line or maybe the combination of both those things but either way it’s back down to its normal place. I have continued my walk runs, I’m running slower, which has helped me run longer, I can run almost continuously for 12 minutes. Slowing down also helped me have less down days from the soreness so I can train more efficiently. Right now I’m alternating the days I add runs to my walk and doing strength training in between those days. Not sure how to arrange rest days..? 🤔 is it still considered a rest day if you do strength training for 20-30 minutes?? I think im getting a good routine going though. Some consistency 👍
Thanks for you alls help.

That's great news!

It also sounds like you've made changes that IMO will be beneficial from the perspective of developing better cardiovascular fitness. Maybe that's part of what's paying off in lowered heart rate, maybe it's something else behind the heart rate drop, maybe a combination. Either way, good results in at least 2 senses.

With the caveat that I have some lifting experience in the past, and a bit more education than that about combining strength work with challenging cardiovascular exercise (the latter from coaching education and experience in my strength-y CV sport), but am far from a strength exercise expert:

A strength day can definitely be a recovery/rest day from cardio, with some care and attention. You know which muscle groups you're challenging strength-wise from your running. How much you're challenging them is a function of your current fitness level, plus how often/long you're running in a way that challenges those muscles more and less. (Your comment about fewer down days from soreness relates to this idea, right?)

If you're doing both high-muscle-challenge running and heavy leg work on the strength side, that can potentially make the strength and cardio interfere with recovery from both. There may be ways to deal with that, and still get the results you want.

I don't know many specifics about periodized training plans for running. I'll make a leap and assume they're at least somewhat similar to plans for rowing. If that's true, I'd think your very long runs (as might be in a plan for marathon/10k prep, for example) or your very high-intensity runs would be a fairly small part of a typical week, maybe as little as one day. Thinking about how to time those in your overall week can still lead to reasonable recovery.

Just as an example, say if you're lifting 2 or 3 days a week, running 3 days, one full rest day, then timing the high intensity or long run before the full rest day might be a reasonable strategy to try.

In addition, there is some whole-system stress from total exercise load - stress we expect to pay off in overall fitness improvement in the long run, but stress nonetheless. I'm talking about the overall demand on our body from the total training schedule. That has the potential to be too much as a whole, with it maybe being hard to identify a specific cause. That can also impair recovery.

The symptoms might be things like increasing resting heart rate, perceivable general fatigue, kind of feeling under-recovered much of the time, getting sick more often, near-constant muscle soreness from effort that didn't have that effect previously, poor sleep, over-use injuries, and any (not necessarily all) of a constellation of other symptoms.

That's kind of where self-knowledge and common sense come into it, especially for those of us who don't have an experienced personal coach. IME, over time one develops more understanding of one's own body, and recognizes when one is overdoing somewhat. That's time to back off total load in some way. (I'd add that high stress in other parts of life - even psychological stress - can sometimes contribute to that total stress load issue, too.) Sometimes we just need a recovery break. (Formal periodized plans often include such a thing once in a while, maybe not a week off but a light week; maybe even a sequence of days off.)

I'd always encourage a regular human - a person with general fitness or recreational goals, as part of a typical balanced life - to add new exercise load gradually. If adding strength work to a cardiovascular fitness routine, that might look like phasing in the number of days per week, or focusing first on developing truly excellent lifting form at relatively lighter weight, first phasing in the parts of lifting that don't overlap with the muscle groups most challenged with the cardiovascular exercise (such as upper body work in the case of running), even maybe backing off cardiovascular load a little for a while, or variations on that theme. How to decide specifics depends a bit on personal goals.

Don't get me wrong, I'd advise the same general idea to someone adding cardiovascular exercise on top of a pre-existing strength routine. The specifics would be different, but I'd still suggest phasing in the new thing gradually. In the long run, as fitness develops, total load of both will be able to increase, within sensible limits, and still allow for adequate recovery.

Sorry; I'm rambling again. TL;DR: Yes, strength work can be recovery from cardiovascular work or vice-versa as a generality, but there are nuances that matter.

Best wishes!