Exercise and heart rate...

[Alex]

Hi people

Just out of interest, what are people excerise habits and normal resting heart rate on these boards?

My resting heart rate is around 55 beats per minute, done by - what you record over 15 seconds and then multiply by 4.

Exercise wise, i do around 5 - 6 hours worth of exercise per week. Which is broken down as 4 1 hour sessions in a swimming pool and then 1 or 2 hours in a gym per week. For the swimming, a normal training session will be about 2 - 3km, and gym work will normally be aerobic exercise on running machines and rowers followed by weight work.

Just out of interest, what do u do for fitness and whats your resting heart rate?

Your heart rate is 13.75 beats in 15 seconds? Mines 56 or thereabouts. Dont do excercise, far too much hassle! Play football a bit though I guess..

[woody]

My resting heart rate is 48-50bpm. Exercise?? lots of cycling (15-20 hrs a week)
for example today I rode 114km at an average HR of 140bpm, average speed 29.0kmh.......all of which gets recorded onto my Polar HRM and uploaded to my pc when i get back. Shall I get my coat now??!

[Rave]

My resting heart rate is somewhere in the low to mid 50s, it varies a bit. The only exercise I get is running about everywhere, either because I'm late, or because I've got a short attention span and walking takes too long.

I've just given up smoking which probably helps a bit.

Rich :¬)

[Kezzer]

I don't bother with heart rate, i just burn about 1000 calories in one workout. So that's 70 mins on the cross-trainer since i've got problems with muscles in my stomach. 1000 calories is still a lot though. I play squash on the weekends as well, walk to college and back so i think i get quite a bit of excersise in.

[shiato storm]

no don't worry, i have a polar hrm too...and yes, with set exercise boundries too!

in ref. to losing weight - bit of a no brainer but here goes - as you start to exercise your body uses glycogen in your muscles, this is an absolute necessity for muscles to actually work. with out it you get nout. it is not an easily replacable energy source whilst exercising and doesn't lst that long.
now, to use/burn off fat you have to realise that what you're actually doing is causing the body to convert to a more abundant energy source and thus can last for longer. aerobic exercise doesn't really have an effect until about 20mins of exercise time has passed, after which your body starts to switch over to the longer lasting and higher yielding fat supplies. you NEED to be exercising aerobicly because oxygen is essential for fat burning, if you start to go anaerobic then you use up your glycogen stores and have to stop in about 5-10 mins.

so there's the science - in essence its what endurance training is about - resisting fatigue, but at the same time, those of you who understand the implications, you burn off fat and start to shed it off at a reasonable rate (forget figure but its not bad, gve it 2 weeks and "notice the difference!!", beauty is you don't even need to go on the 'shakes)

so what to do? try this as a guide: do some exercise thats maximal for example sprinting for 30 seconds - a minute if you can hang on, really go for it, completely mental, psycho...what ever you want to call it, just do it flat out; record your heart rate. the object is to get a limit within which you can exercise that - theoretically - suits you.
work out the percentage heart rate for 50-60% and 60-70%.
[assuming you don't do much exercise at the mo, even if you do this might be useful]

now, sort out a rough plan where you do a day of long duration exercise (about 1h+, perhaps 1hr 30?) at the lower HR range and other days where you do the slightly harder work at higher range but for less time (40mins?)
if you feel really out of breath during the long sessions reduce intensity to a level where you are almost out of breath but are able to hold a conversation whilst you are doing it (except if you swim of course cause it might be difficult...). the higher intensity should be such that you are out of breath but could maintain it for a considerable period of time i.e. 40mins.

give it a month and you HR will have dropped (resting hr), your body will become more geared towards fat metabolism and you drop kilos - literaly. don't forget though that body water content fuctuates so drink lots, as water is vital for this to work...
I was 75-76 kilos the other week, started training after an illness and now I'm 72kg, and thats pretty well hydrated too. 4kgs in 2-3weeks is quite a bit so I don't suggest those who aren't used to lots of exercise throwing themselves into a crazy regime...its more about time spent working than overall intensity - your cellular structure will adapt and it needs time to do this...but it will work.
oh, and stay away from fast food like McD's or BK, KFC...as you're probably away only 10% of the burger is actually meat - the rest is actually ground waste products from butchers/abertoirs... ew!

hope that all makes sense, i've tried to make it simple...realistically it takes a while but

[shiato storm]

p.s. lasange is good for you - has meat (protein) and pasta (carbs) and veggies in the sauce finish the deal nicely, but don't over laod on the cheese!

[TomWilko]

Your heart rate is 13.75 beats in 15 seconds? Mines 56 or thereabouts. Dont do excercise, far too much hassle! Play football a bit though I guess..

lol, I knew someone would bring this up. I took my heart rate 4 times and got the results of 54, 56, 54, 56...so i thought it best to just say 55

Thats a useful post Shiato, thx, I don't really break training down like that tho because it would be confusing But i can see why that works - to work fat off you have to work the other energy out of your body first!

[shiato storm]

well, not so much working other energy off first - perhaps i didn't explain it clearly, sorry...
the way it works is you have 2 stores of energy. one is glycogen the other is fat.
glycogen is predominantly anaerobic - sprinting type usage where very little chance for oxygen you breath gets to muscles to make a difference.
fat is aerobic - long, slow steady pace usage, where the oxygen has time to get to muscles and aid in the breakdown/energy release of fat molecules.

thing is, you see, regardless of what you try to do, once you run out of glycogen the muscle simply will not work...so the act of exercising at a slow and steady pace turns the muscle away from using that as an energy source and instead heads to the fat. eventually your muscle will fatigue just because a little glycogen is used allthe time but given enough fat you could theoretically go for hours [and some people do but thats more to do with adaptive training which I wont go into - bit off topic]
there is a conversion for fat metabolism but its something like 32 times more efficient than glycogen i.e. 1 glycogen released at a time where as 32 energy units per equal amount of fat...forget exact numbers but you get the idea...

so in fact steady exercise is better for you as it gears the body to fat burning and maintains the 'fast' energy release of glycogen as back up etc. when you need it. also makes you feel more energetic - which is good

[M@rco]

Hmmm i apear to be dead no pulse ( Me floats back to the planet uberton after i blew my cover DOH! )

[dgr]

hmm, 52 bpm.

excercise wise, i ride 1/2hr a day and run between 5-15 miles a day.

dgr

[Applecrusher]

whats excercise... lol
i power walk... just so the sun dont get me...
is that enough?

[malfunction]

Oh dear... Measured over the full minute and mine's 70... Mind you I have drunk too much coke this morning (about 1.5 litres already) so I guess that can't help. And I've just calculated my BMI and that's 26 (overweight). So I'd better stop eating / drinking crap and get some more exercise! (BUT I'm a GEEK! Geeks don't EXERCISE!)

[Angus]

My BMI is 24, but it could mean anything.

It doesn't take account of whether you lead an active lifestyle or not; Muscle tissue is denser (and therefore heavier) than fat tissue, so you could be a world champion weight lifter, not have an ounce of fat on you and still be over weight.

Not that I am a world champion weight lifter, and there probably is a genuine reason for me being near the upper limit of acceptable BMI

Oh I remember now... Maccy D's

[malfunction]

Angus - I'm not taking it too seriously - it's just a sign... My beer gut tells me more than my BMI!