does blood pressure meds keep your heart rate down?

[nursewhite]

I am on 2 B/P meds, an ACE inhibitor and a Beta Blocker. I notice my activity level is never as high as I think it should be on my the fitbit chart .I asked my fitness instructor and She was not sure. My heart rate never gets as high as I would like.

[Odyssey13 · Accepted solution]

@nursewhite  You should check with your doctor on what your BP meds do to your heart rate. Since the doctor has your medical history, it would be best to ask them about it.

As for your activity level, do you take your BP before you exercise? I've read where you shouldn't exercise hard if your readings are too high. Hopefully your meds make sure you're not running too high.

Welcome to the forums.

[nursewhite]

Thanks, I will do that. I usually take it once a week  and it is good. I will try to take everyday and 1 hr. after my class.

[tameriley]

A beta blocker helps with blood pressure but it also lowers your heart rate.  I am also on a beta blocker.  I can be on the treadmill moving right along, not able to carry on a conversation but my heart rate never goes above 120.  My doctor has told me that I shouldn't pay attention to the heart rate itself and concentrate on the exertion that I'm putting out.

[tameriley · Accepted solution]

There is a place on the log to post and track your blood pressure as well.  Good tool to us.

[ShelleyG]

I am a Registered nurse and yes the Beta blocker slow your heart rate and it also strenghtens the heart beat.  Your would have to work harder to get your rate up.  I would think the exercise would be great for you but hope you checked it out with your dr before starting too much intense exercise.  The exercise in the long term should help lower your blood pressure.

[Heybales]

Your activity level on the Fitbit chart has nothing to do with your heart rate being high or low, purely amount of movement in given amount of time.

In otherwords - pace. Intensity.

Fitbit has no ability to read your HR.

Where do you think your HR should be?

Why can't you push harder no matter where the HR is?

Some people genetically have a lower HRmax, a diesel heart. Some have higher, a Honda heart.

And meds may be pushing yours to a lower max. But that doesn't mean you can't push yourself outside some medical heart condition that would make that dangerous.

What are you doing exactly where you think the activity level should be higher? At what intensity or pace or speed, ect?

[nursewhite]

It seems like I am working hard in my exercise class but my calories burned is not that great on my fitbit report. I am on a beta blocker and ace inhibitor for Blood Pressure. I think my heart rate does not go above 140. Is this a common result?

[Odyssey13 · Accepted solution]

@nursewhite  You asked this before. Maybe you missed the responses to your question.

Do check with your doctor.

[slysam]

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@nursewhite wrote:

It seems like I am working hard in my exercise class but my calories burned is not that great on my fitbit report. I am on a beta blocker and ace inhibitor for Blood Pressure. I think my heart rate does not go above 140. Is this a common result?

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Your fitbit calorie burn (estimated from your fitbit based on the movement) is not based on heart rate it is based on how much and how fast you move each minute. So I am unclear why you keep focussing on heart rate regarding your fitbit burn.

Are you, by change, logging your heart rate monitor calorie burn? If so, this is changing what fitbit would have estimated. If so... I am someone who naturally has a lower heart rate, I don't take any meds but it is still low. 140 bpm is pretty intense for me (out of breath even though I've exercised consistently for years and am reasonably fit). The highest I tend to get is about 150 when running up 5 flights of stairs (doign stair laps). Walking briskly usually puts me around 101 bpm +/-, a good aerobic workout that is comfortable usually puts me around 120bpm +/-.  

For people with slower heart rates (not sure how this applies if medicine causes the slower rate)... The default formulas on heart rate monitors are not that accurate. They typically use an age/gender based formula to guess at your maximum heart rate. In our case, they will guess too high. This is important because the zones are based on maximum heart rate. And also the calorie burn estimate is usually based on some variation of looking at your "average heart rate" during the workout and what percent of your maximum heart rate is accomplished. In my case, lowering the maximum heart rate seems to have improved the accuracy a lot for me.

I manually set mine to 160 since I've seen my heart rate ocasionally touch 150 ish during all-out effort. My current HRM has some built in fitness assessments that have you do a guided workout and estiamte max heart rate, vo2max (lung capacity) and zones from that--the tests usually put mine around 155 (though it can vary a little by the day) so my guesstimate wasn't too far off (if the test is accurate--it is also estimating). I guess I would suggest lowering your max heart rate in your settings--whatever the formula estimates isn't correct for you.  

The other thing, follow your perceived exertion during workouts--usually if you feel like you are getting a challenging workout you are. Sometimes for people brand new to exercise, they are not yet use to exertion so they work at a lower intensity than they need to. But that will often correct itself over time if they persist, so isn't a bad thing if it eases them into healthy activity. But It sounds like you exercise regularly, so perhaps you can trust your own feelingand sensations a little more. But do talk to your doctor about it, if you haven't already. It is possible he/she won't have insight into using an exercise heart rate monitor/calorie burn, but should be able to give you guidance on what is safe for you and how your medicine might effect your body.