Any idea on how long it takes to see improvement in heart rate?

My starting RHR is pretty terrible.. In the 90's to about 100, and it goes up pretty fast if I get even a little excited or nervous, where it can be 110 during a conversation.

During a workout, even just walking at 2.5 it goes up to 130-140, and at 3.5 in the 140-150 range. After strength training it can go up to 160 even for a sloooow walk with little perceived exertion.

It's all very annoying because I could certainly press myself more, and I have to get up into the 170's to even 'feel' it, and that's out of my 'fat burning' zone and close to the end of my 'aerobic' zone, even.

I hate being this out of shape, and it's not even my legs or my lungs that are as terrible as my heart. (before HRM my lungs or shin splints where the first to tell me how out of shape I was, but now I barely press myself to that point for fear of messing with my heart)

I've had physicals and I'm always 'healthy' with no bars to exercise.. I just am wondering how long it takes to start seeing a major difference in resting heart rate..

Help?

Oh.. and the worst thing is trying to stay in 'fat burning' zone as far as HR.. I have to walk soooooo slooooow that I feel like I'm doing absolutely nothing and it is boring as all ****!! So usually I don't even bother with the 'fat burning' zone and always stay in the 'aerobic' zone. I don't know how this is affecting my weight loss!

I'm not sure where I read this, but someone had posted an article on 3fc awhile back, about the myth of staying in the fat burning zone. When you are in the fat burning zone a larger percentage of calories burned come from fat, but while you are in a higher heart rate zone you burn so many more calories overall that you will burn more fat calories overall. Say in the fat burning zone you burn 50% calories from fat and burn 140 calories overall, then 70 calories were fat, however if you exercized at a higher intensity only 35% of calories burning would be from fat but now you burn 300 calories overal, so 105 calories were fat.

Once I started running about 12 miles a week I saw improvement in my heart rate after only a month. But I'm not sure if this is typical and its only from my experience. Hope this help! Good luck lowering your heart rate!

Thanks! I'd really love to see it go down to 60 or whatever is healthy one of these days! :-)

It took a couple weeks of working out 6 days a week, so it got better pretty fast. Mine is still not where I want it, it goes through the roof pretty fast, but it's so much better. I can go on the treadmill or elliptical for 3 miles now with intervals, and when I first started a couple months ago, half a mile and I was dying! I couldn't even do intervals because the slowest movements spiked my heart rates

First of all as long as you can talk, I wouldnt worry about working out in the "wrong zone". Maximum Heart Rate is a statistical approximation. Yours may be nowhere near the estimate. Go by feel. Steady state cardio = able to talk without gasping, talking takes a bit of effort, but not too much. Intervals go up to "I could talk in short sentences if I had to but I really would prefer not to". If....you....get....to....one....word...gasps... that is way beyond too fast.

Without testing your MHR there is just no way to know what YOURS is. But unless you have a cardiac condition and have been instructed to stay at a certain level. Max HR is not some magic point where your heart is going to suddenly give out. Max HR is simply the fastest your heart is capable of beating. If you reach MHR and continue to exert, your breathing will turn to panting as the lungs try to cycle enough oxygen through to oxygenate the blood. If you somehow continued to push past this you might faint or black out, but your heart isnt going to explode. It's like the rev-limiter on a car.


It usually does not take very long to see improvement in resting heart rate.


Also, for many people HR spikes at the beginning of exercise and if you just hang in there it settles down fairly fast.