Heart rates and exercise

[spinningwoman]

This may be a bit off-topic, but I thought someone might know. I have just started to use a gym for gentle cardio stuff and yesterday for the first time borrowed one of their heart rate monitors that straps round your chest and tells the machine what your heart rate is. I was shocked to see that mine started at about 100 (though I had cycled to the gym so that wasn't a totally resting rate) and very quickly went up to 145/150 even with fairly moderate exertion. If I had worked as hard as I did when I didn't know, I'm sure it would have gone much higher. The weird thing is that I felt fine, though - the previous visit I'd been quite chuffed that I could still run short intervals without feeling exhausted.

I'm 56, 62.25 kg, not very fit but not very overweight either, and none of it round my tummy.

Now, I was pretty overtired and a bit stressed out yesterday. I had a really early night and this morning on waking my pulse was about 85 and my bp has been between 109/77 and 124/88. Just walking around puts it up to 99/100, though

I haven't had any reason to measure my HR for at least a couple of years, but it was always somewhere in the 70s. Now I probably am very unfit - is that likely to be all it is? Or are these numbers enough to worry about?

I'm hoping to see the doctor this week but I'm wondering if this is more normal for my age than I think it is.

 

[Katharine]

I'm 50 and have been exercising regularly for years. I have the wii Personal Trainer and this has a 2 minute jumping jack exercise to assess your cardiac fitness. My resting today was 68 and it went to 145 after the two minutes. I was pretty puffed out. The results seem very similar to to yours. I don't think you have anything to worry about. If you find out differently you had better PM me, because we are in the same boat!

 

[IanD]

My resting heart rate is about 70, BP 130/75. I'm 71 next month.

Heart rehab exercises at the gym (my wife is the heart patient) raise it to about 100 is I work hard.

Tennis raises it to about 150, & it drops to about 120 between games.

 

[phoenix]

I think the rate of recovery is most important, how quickly depends upon what you read. The wikipedia article suggests that it should decrease by at least 30bpm (and preferably more ) within a minute of stopping hard exercise.
My resting heart rate is around 50 but during moderate to hard running it increases to 135-145, on steep hills it can go over 166 which is higher than my theoretical maximum heart rate!
I have an exercise stress test every 2 years and am glad that things are being monitored.(I like the nice comments the cardioligist writes on my ecg printout ) I don't know how easy they are to get in them in the UK but It might be worth asking your GP about one if you are worried.

 

[spinningwoman]

Thanks everybody who replied. I think the numbers were pretty OK, actually - I was just a bit confused by the fact that the only time I had every known my heart rate before was either when sitting down to have my BP taken or else actually during exercise. I hadn't realised that just walking around raises HR significantly above resting heart rate - I was taking my 90-100 HR at the start of exercise to be my resting HR, but once I got a HR monitor I could use at home I have confirmed that my resting pulse is 76 or below.

The weird thing is that I did actually go to the doctor as there is an open clinic on Monday mornings, and although she did reassure me that there most likely wasn't really a problem, she didn't tell me that the HR I recorded was actually pretty normal - she wrote it down as 'tachycardia during exercise' and is getting me in to have a fasting blood test to check for any thyroid or other abnormality. It will be interesting to see the results for HDL/LDL and blood sugar as I've never had those done.

 

[Jo123]

My heart rate goes to about 185 when I run, I do feel absolutely shattered at the end of 30 mins. I am 51, mentioned to my gp he said as all my bp, etc ok then that was fine. My resting pulse is about 65.

 

[spinningwoman]

Now that I'm using the HR monitor, I slow down if I go much over 150, though I did clock a 171 the other day when I wasn't paying attention. It is quite cheering how quickly I can see myself improving - I only started four weeks ago, and then I was doing intervals where the running bit was about 7kph and my HR was up at 150+ almost immediately during the running parts and it was a real struggle. The other day I went up a level by accident and was running at 8.8kph and was round about 140 and felt fine. On the other machine I use, the cross trainer thing, I now have to work quite hard to keep over 126 which the calcs say should be the lower end of my target zone.

 

[hanadr]

I'm 63 and overweight.
My RESTING pulse is about 68( it's been as low as 58) and goes up to about 125 on exercise.
When I was teaching basic biology, we taught that the speed at which your heart rate drops back is the key to fitness. How high up it goes is related to age.
Here though, I'd always defer to Katharine
Hana

 

[spinningwoman]

I'm a bit aware that this is off-topic - does anyone know of a women's fitness forum which isn't full of bodybuilders and preferably doesn't faint at the concept of low-carb eating?

 

[IanD]

I'm playing tennis this evening - I've only played once since early December - so I put on my heart rate monitor this morning when I dressed.

I then went to choir. I was interested to see what effect that healthy activity - deep breathing & singing - had on heart rate. Zilch - it hovered around 68-70 for the two hours. Perhaps I should try some love duets... It went up briefly to 89 when I put the furniture away.

Now the resting rate is 63.

 

[IanD]

I'm a bit aware that this is off-topic - does anyone know of a women's fitness forum which isn't full of bodybuilders and preferably doesn't faint at the concept of low-carb eating?

Start a topic on this forum.

 

[spinningwoman]

Well, that's what I did - but I meant that questions about exercise are not really about low carbing or diabetes so I felt it was a bit off topic. There isn't an exercise section here as such.

 

[sugarless sue]

Have you looked at this one.

realwomensfitness.com/forum/diet-healthy-eating/

 

[phoenix]

An exercise forum on here though would be a good idea though. Low carb, non low carb is not relevent. I should think we all have similar problems.
There is more to diabetes control than diet and medication, exercise or perhaps activity is very important.

 

[IanD]

I resumed my tennis this evening with 2 sets (3-6, 6-2) in 1½ hours. Heart rate was 140-150 immediately after intense rallies when I was serving, otherwise 120-135. It dropped to 90 when we stopped.

BG would normally be around six 3 hours after eating, but vigorous exercise causes it to rise, I presume by the liver supplying the glucose needed. It was 6.9.