Im new to exercise, im 52 and when i started a year ago i was 6-4 272 lbs and one day i just decided to go to the gym and it took me 26 minutes to do 1mile on the eliptical and i was exhausted. However being that out of shape my normal heartrate was still 52 bpm. Now im at 65 minutes and i do 6.5 miles and heartrate is still around 50. This is the issue. I really just sat on an eliptical and did it till i couldnt go any more and just kept pushing myself to go faster longer. However i have no real idea how far i can push. There is a formula that says 220bpm- your age is what your heartrate should be at while exercising. So for me 220-52yrs= 168 bpm. Seems easy enough. However the average out of shape person has a 80 bpm heartrate so going to 168 is barely doubling your heartrate which seems no big deal. However i have a 50 bpm heartrate yet although the number would indicate a in shape heart, ive sat on a couch being fat my whole life and if i even get my heart near 140 i can feel it start to hammer in my chest. So i think anything close to 170 would mess me up. I have no medical reason to believe this as im perfectly healthy, heart is medically fine it just seems way past what it should be able to do. Is it safe for you to feel your heart beating/hammering in your chest when your exercising? Is this the point where you are maximizing your effectiveness or is this dangerous and a warning to back off? This is a medical question ask your doctor you might say. i tried that, my doctor retired so i had to pick a new name from the list and my doctor was a 5 foot tall woman who probably werighed as much as i did and clearly knew nothing about exercise and told me to “do what was comfortable” so she had no idea. So non medical advice, what is a better thumbnail on what is safe for heartrate beyond 220-age formula? Does everyone feel thier heart beat in chest when pushing themselves and is that normal band an indication of a good workout? Or is that the sign your pushing to hard?
I’m pretty sure your target rate should be lower than 220-(your age). 220-(your age) is the formula for your maximum heart rate. You should target 80% of that for exercise, so you should target 135 or so.
As you exercise more and gain fitness your target rate doesn’t change, but the amount of exercise it takes to reach that rate will increase. You’ll have to increase either the duration of the exercise or the intensity to reach that target. As a newbie to exercise you should do it at least three times per week, four would be better.
And be sure about your cardiac health before beginning. Your heart rate seems odd to me, it may be something to see an electrophysiologist about. For a guy unused to exercise to have a resting pulse of fifty sounds like bradycardia to me, but what do I know?
Target 135 you say. Ok this is my question, if your heartrate is normally say 80, your “target” at 135 is a 170% increase in heartrate. seems ok. If my baseheartrate is 52, that same target of 135 means my heart is beating 260% of my normal baseline rate. Are you saying there is no difference between the two?
As you’re in a gym, why don’t you book a session with a fitness instructor? It strikes me that you’re currently exercising in a bit of a fog with no clear goals or milestones, and relying on heart rate to tell you something.
A fitness instructor will have a far better idea of how to go about putting together a programme to get you where you want to be, and will have a better reading of your vitals. This doesn’t need to cost a lot of money - one hour-long session now and another in a few months to assess progress and change your programme would help a lot.
Yea thats my next step except covid has cancelled alot of the personal trainer programs for now.
220-age is, at best, a thumbrule. As @Bill_Door says, that’s a guide to your maximum heart rate, not what you should be working out at. Maximum heart rate does drop off with age, but I’m skeptical that it’s linear and 220 definitely doesn’t work for a lot of people. When I was 30, I could bike for a half hour to an hour at 190-195; it’s physically impossible to operate at your maximum heart rate for more than a couple of minutes, so that clearly wasn’t my maximum, even though it was higher than the formula.
I agree that 135 bpm is a reasonable target for you. You should pay attention to how you feel. “Beating/hammering” in your chest is not what you want for sustained fitness, although brief spurts at that level are appropriate for some types of interval workouts.
Use your doctor (and possibly a cardiac workup) for confirmation that exercising isn’t dangerous, but don’t expect any doctor to be particularly knowledgeable about exercise physiology unless you’re seeing somebody who specializes in that. You want to be working out at a level that you can sustain, both for a sufficiently long workout, but also that you can do a few times per week for the long haul.
As to your resting heart rate, yes you’re bradycardic by definition (resting HR < 60 bpm). Whether that’s a problem or not is up to a cardiologist to determine, possibly following an ECG and/or echocardiogram. My resting heart rate was in the low 40s from when I was a teenager. A senior Navy cardiologist told me not to worry about it as I was a runner. Over time, as I got older and wasn’t exercising at all, it crept up to around 60 bpm; every doctor visit was happy with my heart rate (but not with my weight/fitness). Then I had a heart attack and cardiac arrest 4 years ago. Since then, I’ve been working out regularly, lost at least 35 pounds, am running 30-40 km/ week, and my resting HR is back in the low 40s. That’s what’s normal for me. 50 to 60 was a sign of poor heart health for me, and may be for you, too.
First of all, who told you your heart health was fine? You state that in the OP, but what is that based on? Are you assuming that because your resting heart rate is low? Because there are other, less benign reasons to have a low heart rate. Being able to feel your heart hammer in your chest at 140 bpm doesn’t sound fine to me. There are all kinds of cardiac dysrhythmias some of which can cause sudden death.
There probably is a difference, but I wouldn’t obsess over it. A general guide is that aerobic exercise should be at around 80% of your maximum HR. It’s probably a bit more “accurate” to consider restHR + (maxHR - restHR)x80%, but it’s just not enough of a distinction to fixate on. For me, it comes down to 132 bpm or 140 bpm. Unless you’re training for elite competition, don’t worry about 8 bpm; worry about what you can do and keep doing for the long term.
“Being able to feel your heart hammer in your chest at 140 bpm doesn’t sound fine to me” Even if thats almost 300% of my normal heartrate? Triple your heartrate and see how your heart feels in your chest?
Don’t triple your heart rate if that’s the effect it’s having! Heck, don’t climb up a flight of stairs if that’s the effect it’s having; not without seeing a cardiologist, anyway.
For the record, triple my resting heart rate is 125-130 bpm. I can do that for hours on end and don’t feel my heart at all (my knees are another matter). But I’m fit (now, anyway).
@Bill_Door is spot on. How do you know your heart health is fine? Your low resting heart rate might be OK, might actually be high for you, or might be a dangerous warning sign. I know my bradycardia is OK, because I’ve got more than 30 years of ECGs and conversations with cardiologists to back it up, but it doesn’t sound like you’ve got any of that to go on.
Heart rate aside, you are doing too much too soon in a new exercise program. Get a new doctor. Depending on your health insurance it might also be a good idea to be evaluated by a cardiologist. My cardiologist discovered a couple of issues that my internist had no clue about.
Heart rate is a very individual thing. But I am a little surprised to hear your heart rate was 52 with a sedentary lifestyle and being obese. My resting heart rate is 52 and I am very active (5’10" 165, I lift weights or bicycle 5-6 days a week–biking on the road, not stationary).
The feeling of your heart hammering in your chest seems unusual to me. Even when I took a stress test and got to about 95% of my maximum I did not have that sensation. The way the heart works, it can rock around when it beats but if you feel that when you are exercising at a certain level it may indicate overdoing it. But IANAD.
You don’t say what your current weight is but I would prioritize weight loss over driving your heart beat sky-high in exercise sessions.
Not sure what kind of ellipticals your gym has but I’ve been on various types and the ones with built in heart rate monitors usually have some sort of “cardio” program built into them. The ask your age, weight, and workout duration and come up with a target BPM for you. If I choose age 50, 190 pounds, 30 minutes it usually gives me a target of 137. I usually keep it around 141 and occasionally it’ll creep up to 150 or so. The machine then usually beeps at you to slow down.
I wouldn’t overthink the heart rate numbers. It might be better at this stage of fitness to work off a “perceived exertion” chart.
https://blog.mapmyrun.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/UACF-RPE-Chart.jpg
Judging how long it fells like you could exercise for, and how easy it is to have a conversation (just chat to yourself if there’s no one with you) are useful indicators for how hard your body is working.
Different activities can make you work harder / easier. I’ve never been much of a runner and I find it difficult to talk just when I’m jogging. On the other hand I can cycle at a good speed for hours chatting away to a companion.
Once you’ve been exercising for a while you will get a better understanding of how hard you can push yourself and what it feels like when you do.