How High is Too High HR

It probably depends on your age, gender, and level of fitness. My heart rate on the treadmill often peaks around 185 when I'm working really hard. I suppose your heart rate could be too high if you were having some sort of attack or something, but while exercising I find it hard to imagine you'd get your heart rate up to a dangerous place.

My advice would be to ask your doctor about it and what you personal target heart rate should be. But I would say 170 is nothing to worry about, just means you're working hard.

There's a Target Heart Rate calculator on WebMD.

When I put in my own stats, it shows 185 bpm is where I should stop. To burn calories/fat I need to hit at least 155 bmp while doing cardio.

It depends on the person and your age. My HR has gotten to 210 before when sprinting on a treadmill and while the trainer I was with was concerned, she said as long as it goes down quickly once the exercise has stopped, it's nothing to be worried about. When working out to the point where I can really feel it, my HR is easily 180-190 though, so it's just unusually high in general. (Not when resting, my resting HR is in the 60s and normal).

Heart rate seems to vary quite a bit person to person. My dad has a slow heart and my mom has a fast heart. I seem to have inherited a fast heart whereas my brother has a slow heart. If I'm on an elliptical machine for example, I can sustain a heart rate of 180-185 bpm for at least 20 minutes at a time. That's working fairly hard, but I can easily push it over 200 for short bursts.

As far as I've been able to figure, our heart will continue to pump blood to supply the demand for oxygen from the muscles (among other functions) and will beat as fast as it can to get the job done*.

Because we are, generally speaking, in really poor shape, we're not used to revving up our heart so, when we get into a high BPM range, we are in uncharted, and, therefore, a little scary, territory. (Glad that sentence ended…I was out of commas!)

Assuming that you don't have any heart defects, you can rev is as high as you want. Just for G&G about two years ago, I got on the ellip and wound it up to 200 with no ill effects which is way high for a guy aged 53 (back then).

What's your max HR? It is not 220 minus your age.

This is a link from Runner's World to a column by "The Penguin".

http://thepenguin.runnersworld.com/2009/02/taking-it-to-the-max.html

I read his advice in his book "Marathoning for Mortals", a good, quick read and worth it (buy it used from Amazon!) if you have any interest in marathoning. His nickname comes from his gait and his size before he started running, BTW.

This was an interesting column, too:

http://beginners.runnersworld.com/2008/06/my-heart-rate-monitor-says-im-running-too-fast-should-i-slow-down.html


*though some folks with slight heart defects sometimes experience a little "cavitation"

Thanks for all the info.! I'm a 48 year old female, who's 85% max would be 172, and I regularly get into the 160's when doing my Insanity workouts. I usually go until I just "have" to take a break, rather than follow the HRM, or else I'd be stopping all the time.