Working out at max heart rate for 1 hour bad?

[Ramrod]

 Hi guys...I need a bit of advice....i recently increased my activity from the end of May and changed my diet...i have gone from 19 stone to 17 stone. The main type of training i am doing is jogging/running on treadmill. I have gone from doing 4k in an hour to doing 8k in an hour, however my heart rate is at max for most of my workout. If I work at lower intensity i do not feel like I have had a good workout but still sit at the higher end of fat burn on my heart rate. Any thoughts on wether i am placing too much strain on my heart or any other advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[ivanm92]

Depending on your age and fitness level would be a first start to determining if it is causing harm, but more then likely it is not. When you run or perform any other form of aerobic exercise that elevates your heart rate over 85 percent of maximum, you will not gain any extra physical benefit from your activity. Even experienced runners can typically get the maximum benefit from their activity while keeping their heart rates in the 75-percent to 80-percent range. 

If you are worried about it, I would try and run a slower pace during your runs when you notice your HR exceeding over the 85% maximum. 

Hope this helps!

[JohnnyRow]

Unless you are an elite runner, if you are regularly maintaining max heart rate for an hour, I would question the accuracy of the heart rate reading.

But I would also suggest not doing that on successive days. A high intensity workout like that requires at least one "easy" day to allow recovery.  At most, I'd suggest two days a week with more than a few minutes in peak zone.

[Ramrod]

Thanks for the replies...i think I will have to ease up a bit then....mind says yes but body says no lol. I think I will aim for 75% max hr and make the run/jog a little longer to achieve the distance i want to get to.

[WavyDavey]

Getting some time in the peak zone is important for anaerobic development, but you don't want to stay in that zone continuously during exercise. I also question the reading, as if you went an hour in the peak zone, I would be sure you'd be puking your guts out afterwards.

Try taking your pulse at the wrist with a stopwatch and compare the readings to the tracker to verify the heart rate reported is accurate. Also, when you've been in the peak zone for a few minutes, switch to jogging until the heart rate drops. This is the principle of HIIT training--alternating peak and cardio zones.

[Kimste]

I had 1 hr of peak while rowing for an hour (13356 meters) and my average heartbeat was 153 while on max was 169. I am 60 years old and after today's exercise, I took also 1 30 minutes on the bike. then lower heartbeat rate down to 130 in average.

I was litle bit nausea when I came home, it toook litle bit longer for heart to get down to rest puls to 60, but now, 8 hrs later I feel fine. I also wonder how this type of training will have of effect. Tomorrow is another day, but then weights and a little bit easier.

[t.parker]

@Kimste if you can spend that long near your max HR then it means one thing - this isn't your max HR. Your max is higher. If you are able to spend an hour within some HR range putting more effort into it then it's most likely within your lactate threshold (often called zone 4). Looking at HR chart I see quite a steady effort.

Let's say that 156bpm for this steady effort is your LTHR (without running math on your actual HR data I can't define LTHR but I can assume that it is somewhere between average and max recorded so I approximate it). So for 156bpm your zones would look like this:

How does that translate to your effort and Fitbit zones? Peak should start around 160bpm but you may include super-threshold into it (156bpm). Cardio is most likely between Aerobic/Tempo up to threshold zones. Everything below is Fat burn. On Fitbit, you can't fine-tune your zones so (I do that) adjust max HR so the Cardio/Peak threshold falls at your LTHR (156bpm). 

This will give you much clearer readings. Don't worry about your age. This activity would fall entirely into Cardio zone which would look correct considering it's length and steadiness.

I can't be sure whether 156bpm is your threshold (there are ways of finding it but without actual data I can only estimate based on information you provide) but that would look more or less alright.

If you set your zones like this:

It will give you quite a good (more realistic) model. Under Fat Burn will be your Recovery and easy aerobic, Cardio will start near Aerobic zone and your Peak at Super-Threshold. That's probably best estimate you can get out of Fitbit.

Feeling exhausted is normal after such effort (especially if you didn't fuel yourself during it - for a long endurance workout (and that was endurance workout) you need to fuel yourself or you'll just hit a brick wall). If you plan to go this hard (tempo/threshold) for an hour and more you need energy for it (before, during and after workout). Such workout is like a race effort. It will affect VO2Max and anaerobic threshold rather positively. There is nothing wrong with it. It may as well be a tempo effort if done at the lower end of (new) Cardio zone. You don't want to go into threshold too often though as this will be just counterproductive (depends on activity, risk of injury may increase or in the middle you'd just run out of power, will feel slugish etc.).

[Kimste]

Thank you for your very good reply. I do not take any form of intake of fluid or "food" during my rowing sessions. My fear is "laziness" that I do not put enough effort in my 1 hour of rowing. So I try every time to put new personal records into my rowing. I do 1 hrs of rowing once a week (Mondays) Wednesdays 2 x 6000 meters in intervals same on Fridays,  Tuesdays, and Thursdays is 30 minutes stationary bike whereof 30 minutes are the peak, then workout with up to 600 sit-ups in different forms, jumping on a medicine ball and do squat, bench, and push-ups, then 30 minutes more stationary bike.
I have lost close to 88 pounds in 12 months. I was overweight and my weight is now 171lb.  Diet and hard training 5-6 times a week. I was in my younger days a top athlete in bike cycling, so I believe that training and competitive bike riding made this much easier for me to get back in shape and lose weight.