Not hitting Cardio zone?

[JaimeRock]

Hello, I got my girlfriend a Fitbit Versa 3 and she's loving it. She weighs 127kg and measures 164 so she is very determined to lose weight.

We go on walks every day and she tries to hit the cardio zone by walking a bit faster up hill but even tho she is out of breath her heart rate doesn't go higher than 135 bpm ish. I would think that she should be able to get to the cardio zone faster than any other athletic person am I wrong? What would be the best way for her to do more cardio for her physical shape?

[WavyDavey]

Hi @JaimeRock and welcome.

The first thing I would do is my sure all her information is correct in her profile.

Then I might have her check the wrist placement of the Versa 3, to make sure the HR is correct.  Usually when I'm out of shape, it's pretty easy to hit cardio zone, and then as that improves, it gets harder and harder to stay in the cardio zone, especially walking. I've met a few people who despite the exertion, their heart doesn't respond as much as someone else. What is her resting heart rate?.

[Heybales]

The other problem that can easily occur once she verifies the HR reading is accurate - is the scale range is not accurate for her.

Meaning those zones are based on a calculated HRmax of 220-age - and there are more people that fall outside a 10 bpm range then within it.

Meaning her HRmax is no where close to what Fitbit calculated and based the zones on.

Now, being out of shape will cause out of breath pretty quick anyway - but once you've walked regularly for a few weeks - if she still gets out of breath on those hills and HR just doesn't climb much - then the HRmax estimate is not good for her, and the HR zones are not true for her.

She is actually in the Cardio zone despite the reading.

The only measurements involved with the Fitbit are your height, weight, and HR.

Everything else is a calculation, estimate, ect.

And can be wrong.

Cardio range is normally discerned by talking test - lower end of range, if you can talk short complete sentence but must breath a bit before next sentence. Upper end of range just a few words in a sentence before some breaths is required.

If she is worse than that - she's already above cardio range for current fitness level.

If she can talk constantly pretty much without much issue she is below cardio range.

You can change the HRmax setting to better reflect the fact of your own body.

Some have a diesel heart, slow and big pumps, some have a Honda heart, fast and small pump. Genetic, not going to change it.

[emili]

Going into cardio zone for a few seconds isn't really doing anything for her overall effort on the walk. And she may be hitting cardio, but it is so brief that it isn't captured anywhere and she may be missing it when she flicks her wrist to look. Walking is a steady state cardio activity, which means your heart will initially speed up, but it will settle into a zone for the remainder of the activity and may speed up again as it gets to the end because we instinctively move faster and get more "excited" as the activity comes to an end. In my opinion, I wouldn't worry so much about the zones she is hitting just yet. Focus on the speed and length of the walk. How much easier it becomes to do day to day. Add in other layers into the walk, such as a 60 second jog at the end of each quarter mile, or 15 jumping jacks every three minutes. Almost like a "fake" HIIT activity. In either case, she is trying and she has you by her side- I think she is miles ahead in her fitness journey