heartrate help

I'm sure there is some simple way to look this up, I'm just not finding it. Is my heartrate going too high?  I have a timex heartrate monitor and I'm on week 3 of c25k, my heartrate goes to 180 while running, 150-160 walking intervals and then I cool off on the bike and it goes down to 130s. Is that training rates or too high?  I feel good during my work outs, not too hard or anything.

Geez, that sounds high to me. I'll bet you could find a chart on FitDay or LiveStrong, good luck!

Jenny

Age	Target HR Zone 50–85 %	Average Maximum Heart Rate 100 %
20 years	100–170 beats per minute	200 beats per minute
25 years	98–166 beats per minute	195 beats per minute
30 years	95–162 beats per minute	190 beats per minute
35 years	93–157 beats per minute	185 beats per minute
40 years	90–153 beats per minute	180 beats per minute
45 years	88–149 beats per minute	175 beats per minute
50 years	85–145 beats per minute	170 beats per minute
55 years	83–140 beats per minute	165 beats per minute
60 years	80–136 beats per minute	160 beats per minute
65 years	78–132 beats per minute	155 beats per minute
70 years	75–128 beats per minute	150 beats per minute

Your maximum heart rate is about 220 minus your age. The figures above are averages, so use them as general guidelines.

Note: A few high blood pressure medications lower the maximum heart rate and thus the target zone rate. If you're taking such medicine, call your physician to find out if you need to use a lower target heart rate.

I found this on the the American Heart Assoc. web site. It also goes on to discuss target heart rate and their meaning as related to age and physical activity.

Enjoy :)

Okay, I'm 30. So I'm a little high for the target hr zone, so just take it down a notch?

Sounds high to me too. A way to get an approximate max HR is to subtract your age from 226. (220 for men). I don't think that you would be able to sustain a 180 HR for more than a couple minutes at a time and as you cool down, it should go under 100.

One other thing to think about...  Are you short?

There's been some recent research on smaller people having smaller hearts thus higher heart rates when doing high intensity exercise.

When I was your age, it wasn't uncommon for me to have my HR about 180 during high intensity exercise.  Even now at 44 it's common to be in the high 160's when I run hard for any length of time.  Then again, my resting HR is only around 50.  As long as you aren't feeling discomfort, I would think it's fine for you.

Linn 

No, I'm 5'8". That is interesting though.

Okay, those formulas are bunk for most people. Ignore them. They are based on average, so unless you are completely average in every day, they will be off for you.

I believe in using Relative Perceived Effort instead. It doesn't require you to know your max heart rate -- which can only truly be known by doing a cardiac stress test. OTOH, I had to do a cardiac stress test for my surgery, so I actually know mine. Or at least that it was two years ago... LOL

Anyway, even though I know mine, I still use RPE.

Here's a list of both the 6-20 scale and the 0-10 scale:

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/borgscale.htm

In studies, they found RPE does correlate pretty well to HR for most people but the more trained you are, the better the correlation. Also it works better for guys than women. I find it pretty reasonable though.