Safe - Erm how fast should my heart beat when excercising?

[Margo]

Ok so im old and i havent moved for 5 years. I went to the gym for the second time today. I did 5 mins rowing, 5 mins cycling, did a few weights and then went on the running machine for 20 mins. I walked for 18 mins at a good pace and then ran for the last two mins.

My heart rate was 187 >.< Now i know im unfit but isnt that a little too high?

I was ratyher dizzy after and it took me a loooong time to recover (30 mins in total).

Perhaps i overdid it?

[shadow-light]

what your heart rate should be is dependant on many things, age, type of exercise and gender to name a few. For example a 18 year old man should aim for 121bpm for fat burn and 180bpm for cardio. With every year the target goes down a bit, I don't know the exact numbers for men though I'm afraid, I know the female ones but I am fairly sure it's different.


If you google "target heart rate chart" you should be able to find a table of target heart rates and maximum heart rates for different ages and genders. In fact on many machines at gyms they have a table of target heart rates, or at least they do at my gym so I assume they have them at others

[Bellatrix]

How old are you? (You can PM me if you want)

I have a chart on my wall that will answer your Q!

Really, if you're over 35/40 that's a bit too high. Is there a personal trainer at your gym you can talk to? If not, your doc?

[makedamnsure]

Also, I'm not sure how accurate gym sensors are.

But if you are feeling dizzy then its probably been a bit much.
Take it slower, and keep yourself hydrated.

But well done for going the gym!
Our gym do free personalised exercise plans. Perhaps you could ask about that?

[Animad]

Really, the levels that have been said above are targets for what people should aim for, not what is ok and what is not.

Given that you've done little exercise in a long time and now you've suddenly asked your body to do over 30mins of pretty intense exercise I would expect your heart rate to rise to get the blood around your system so your cells have got enough energy. No-one can say for definate that yep, for a man of your age after not doing exercise for 5yrs and then doing.... your heart rate should be exactly ___BPM as it changes from person to person. Given what you've said, that heart rate does not astound me and it's not one I'd be worried about as that is your bodies normal way of compensating and for a body that's not used to it suddenly being asked a lot it will shoot up.

However, I do think you took it a bit far. With exercise and how fit you are/ whether you can cope it's not necessarily your heart rate at a certain point (which does depend on a lot of things including size, age, your resting heart rate which is different for others to some degree, but it is more about how quickly you take to recover. This can be taken by how quickly your heart rate goes back to normal and what is usually done and the faster it does the fitter/ more able to cope with that sort of demand you are. However, the fact that you felt dizzy and stuff after makes me think you did overdo it and 30mins to recover is a long time. You need to step back with your exercise. The best thing to do is talk to a trainer at a gym (where I presume you went) and they can come up with a personal plan for you. This will start off slowly and work up. Suddenly asking your body to go from nothing to doing that much can cause problems so ideally you should start at just brisk walking/ swimming and then gradually increase the time/ distance/ speed you're going at and then add more things on and not get to the point where you feel dizzy; if you do your program should step back a bit. As well as that, exercise is best done wit doing it not everyday bt 3-4x per week is generally what is suggested so your body has time in between. As well as that, one more thing I wanted to say is that it is important that once you've done a work out you slowly walk around a bit. This will pump the lactic acid in your system to your liver more effectively where it will be broken down. If not, more will stay within your muscles where it will damage the fibres and cause you to be more achy the next day, be more prone to injury and not feel as good.

It is also incredibly important to make sure you keep drinking whilst working out so you don't get dehydrated as you will be using up and losing a lot more water than usual and if you don't replace it that can lead to dizziness and ultimately dehydration.

[Margo]

Thank you. Yeah i drank lots of water and moved around and stretched and tried to remember all the stuff i used to do. I guess i overdid it. Story of my life :P

Tuesday at 5 pm i have an appointment for a training program so im already on the ball with that one too.

I remember when i was fitter and well that i always had a high heart rate. However when ever ive had a check up at the docs for anything no one has ever pointed anything out.

Thanks for all the advice.

[Animad]

Yeah, people can all have different resting heart rates. Some of the top athletes heart rates can be down as low as 40BPM as their heart gets bigger and so can contain more blood anf this is seen wwith marathon runners. However, even some normal people's heart rates can be lower or higher than normal; sometimes due to a health condition but often just due to normal variation. Mine, for example, at rest is around 80-85BPM which is higher than most and I've had tests (for other reasons) to ensure my heart is normal. It's all down to the fact that the normal values are taken from a group of normal indivduals living in normal situations. Out of this group, the normal rate is taken from where 95% of the people's heart rate lies into so inevitably, 2.5% of people will have a lower heart rate than normal and 2.5% higher than that so it may just be that you fit into that group and though your rate is not statisically normal it doesn't automatically suggest that there is something going on with it.

[FlightlessBird]

When I first started working out my heart rate would get above 180 too. If you ever have chest pain or trouble breathing, or if you feel like you're going to throw up...stop, drink some water or gatorade, and take it slower.

[SavingGrace]

I think the equation for ESTIMATED MAXIMUM heart rate is something like

220bpm - age

Eg: mine is 220 - 18 = 202bpm Maximum.
Anything over or close to this if I remember from my study, is not too healthy and its worth going to a doctor. =]

But as Animad said, It does vary from person to person and with age.