SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to Practically Fit, Real Fitness Over 40. I'm Alex Johnson.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

And I'm Jen Chamberlain.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

And today we're going to talk about your heart rate. Should you monitor it? What are heart rate zones and what does your heart rate say about your overall fitness?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Can I admit something here, Alex? Absolutely. I know next to nothing about this topic, at least before we started researching it for the podcast. But it seems like a pretty important subject. I've always thought it's something I should know more about that I don't, so I'm glad we're doing this. And coincidentally, I recently read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that said the proportion of Americans under 40 having heart attacks went up 2% each year between 2000 and 2016. That's a pretty sobering statistic, especially for those of us who are well over 40. So why should we care about our heart rate?

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Well, I think you said it right there. We know the impact of heart disease in the United States. It's the number one killer in the United States of all causes of death. For me, this is a personal thing as well. Uh, you know, I have high blood pressure. Uh my dad had a stroke when he was in his mid-60s. I've seen heart disease in my family. So I think that heart rate is a really great thing to monitor. And I think the first place to start uh when you think about heart rate and your overall health and your heart health is resting heart rate. And that's a really important indicator of overall health. It's pretty easily tracked these days via smart wearables. Um I personally track my heart rate with a Garmin watch. And of course, these wearables aren't perfect, but they give you a good trend of data over time. I know you track yours as well. So what's what's your resting heart rate, Jen?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

I do. I have an old-fashioned just Fitbit that I track my heart rate with. And like you said, over time you get a pretty good read on what your average is. And I average between 51 and 53 beats a minute for my resting heart rate. If I'm really calm, like first thing in the morning, I can get down into the 40s, like 45 to 48. So that's my range.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Wow, and that's that's pretty low. So you probably that may come up at your doctor's office, right? And we'll talk about that in a little bit. Uh, of course, it can also be an indicator of fitness, right? So mine's about 60 on average. It's anywhere from like, you know, from day-to-day upper 50s to low 60s over the course of a week. Uh, so I feel pretty good about those uh resting heart rate numbers that we've got there. Uh so let's talk more about resting heart rate. What does it mean? Uh, I found some great information from Harvard University Health Publishing, just some basic information about resting heart rate. The average resting heart rate of a healthy adult is anywhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute. So that's why I was referencing yours being a little lower. Right. Yeah. That's it's not bad, but it's something that, you know, could be bad if you had a condition, which you don't. Right. Um, a resting heart rate at the low end of the spectrum may offer some protection against heart attacks. And we'll talk more about that and uh some interesting research that we found here in a bit. Research has found that those with the highest resting heart rates, more than 76 beats per minute, were 26% more likely to have a heart attack or die from one than those with the lowest test resting heart rate, 62 beats per minute or less. So if your heart rate is consistently above 80 beats per minute, even though this could be considered the healthy zone, you should probably talk to your doctor. And there's all sorts of factors that can influence resting heart rate age, fitness level, how much caffeine you drink, are you pounding coffees all day? That might have an impact on your resting heart rate. Are you smoking? Do you drink a lot of alcohol? Your medications that you take, stress, anxiety, you name it, all of these things can factor in.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, absolutely. I do pound uh coffee like pretty much all day until about three o'clock. So that doesn't seem to affect mine too much, but maybe I'm just used to it. I will say alcohol does. Um so alcohol causes your what they call your heart rate variability to drop and your resting heart rate to rise. And both of these are not very, they're not, they're negatives, they're not positive. So heart rate variability is the amount of time in between the beats of your heart and the it's supposed to be a little bit higher versus a little bit lower. Now, this is measured in milliseconds, so it's a pretty delicate indicator. But I've noticed um, you know, I like many people, I tend to drink more on weekends than during the week. And I've seen my heart rate variability uh drop just a little bit, um, and my resting heart rate go up just a little bit. So it just shows how much even a small thing like that can impact it.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah, I've noticed that as well because if you look at that heart rate data, like I think I mentioned this before, if I have a couple of drinks in the evening uh and then go to sleep, I've noticed that my resting heart rate is a little higher overnight uh if I've had alcohol. So that can definitely impact it. If you're tracking your resting heart rate, which we're arguing you should, I mean, there's great tools to do this today, and it's a it's an important indicator of health. One thing to watch for is a change. So you can see how your heart rate is averaging out over time in a general sense with these fitness wearables. So if you have a sudden change, it could indicate a health issue. Again, this is why I think there's a real benefit to tracking it. I found this really interesting study from Sweden published in 2019 called Impact of Changes in Heart Rate with Age on All-Cause Death and Cardiovascular Events in 50-year-old men from the general population. So that one stuck out to me. I mean, I'm not quite 50 yet, but uh it's it's right down my alley. Cool. Uh and this study tracked a random sample of men born in 1943 who were living in Gothenburg, Sweden for a 21-year period. And Sweden's a pretty chilled place, I gotta think, right? So you know a good place to track people's heart rates. Uh and they were examined, this group of men was examined three times for their heart rates via EKG and testing. And they did it in 1993, so when they were 50, in 2003 when they were 60, and then in 2014. Uh so the study found that participants with a baseline resting heart rate of greater than 75 beats per minute in 1993, so that again is when they were 50, uh, had about a twofold higher risk of all causes of death, cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease, compared with those whose was whose resting heart rate was less than 55 beats per minute in 1993. So then they examined these men when they were 60. And participants with a stable resting heart rate between 93 and 2003, so between the first check and the second check, had a 44% decreased risk of cardiovascular disease compared with participants with an increasing resting heart rate over that time period. Furthermore, every beat increase in heart rate from 1993, and this is pretty wild, every beat per minute increase in heart rate from 1993 on was associated with a 3% higher risk for all-cause death, 1% higher risk for cardiovascular disease, and 2% higher risk for coronary heart disease. So every beat per minute you added in between that time period uh increased your risk for death. So, overall, what the study found was that individuals with an increase in resting heart rate between 50 and 60 years of age had worse health outcomes. So fascinating research. My big takeaway from this, we've got to keep moving and exercising our hearts to keep the resting heart rate down and to keep your ticker healthy. It's amazing what a big impact this can have on your cardiovascular health.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing it makes me think about is there's a comparison with um weight gain. Because you know, um I actually love the way this study is structured over the 10-year periods because I've I've seen other studies where people, all of us, tend to gain weight a little bit, like very gradually over time. And that weight gain is uh correlates with worse health outcomes, right? But it happens very gradually, and it seems like with the heart uh health, it's the same thing. So you have to be careful that these things don't kind of creep up on you, right? And this is this study is just a perfect indication of that. So yeah, I think that's my big takeaway too.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, and the way they structured it, having the three different check-ins, I thought was really amazing. I mean, this is really solid research. So speaking of weight, I think you've got more research, right, that has that as a factor in it compared to resting heart rate.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's really fascinating how resting heart rate can vary so much from person to person. I mean, even you and I, like we're both relatively fit, and our heart rate is quite different. So we found this other study, and this one had a long title, so bear with me. Um, it was called inter and intra-individual variability in daily resting heart rate and its associations with age, sex, sleep, BMI, and time of year. Retrospective longitudinal cohort study. Ah, let me try that whole thing over again.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

That's a tongue twister. You want me to try it? Retrospective longitudinal cohort study.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

There you go, of 92,457 adults. That's a big sample, I must say.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Yeah, yeah, huge.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

So this study did a large-scale analysis of heart rate data over a period of 35 weeks for this cohort, measured by a risk-based tracker, kind of like my Fitbit and your garment. And there were several interesting facts, and I'll just highlight a few of them here, but it found that individuals can have a daily resting heart rate that's normal for them, but can differ from another individual's normal by as much as 70 beats a minute, which is more than I would expect, actually.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah, it's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah, absolutely. 95% of the men in the study had a resting heart rate between 50 and 80 beats per minute, while the corresponding range for women was between 53 and 82 beats per minute. And women had a significantly higher resting heart rate across all ages, which is interesting personally for me because mine is really low.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah, it's this is just fascinating to me, I have to say. Um, across all the ages, the average resting heart rate increased until approximately 50 years of age and then began a downward trend. So that's interesting. And then resting heart rate and BMI, this is a really interesting point, appeared to have a U-shaped relationship with the lowest resting heart rate associated with a BMI of 21 for women and 23 for men, generally in the middle of a healthy range for BMI.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

And of course, that stands for body mass index. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah, good point. Yeah. Absolutely. So there's definitely a correlation between um weight gain and your heart rate. And then also sleep plays a big factor. And this came out in the study as well. So when it comes to sleep, the minimum resting heart rate registered for both men and women who slept an average of seven to seven and a half hours per night. So they had the lower heart rates across the study. So really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Yeah, in that that range of seven to seven and a half hours, you know, you always hear get eight hours of sleep, but seems like seven to seven and a half is pretty optimal for your health based on this study. And yeah, resting heart. I tend to be in that range generally. So I I found that to be exciting.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, me too. And uh back kind of a side tangent, but with the trackers, you can measure your sleep really well too. And I found even if I'm in bed for eight hours, I'm tending to get actually seven to seven and a half hours per night of actual, you know, sleep versus wakefulness, as they call it. So here's an interesting point though. People in the study who were underweight and overweight both showed greater heart rate variability. So that's that's interesting. Um, so on both sides of the spectrum. And last but not least, the time of year had an effect. So resting heart rate peaked in the first week of January for both men and women and hit a yearly minimum at the end of July, which is interesting. I don't know. I wonder if climate is a factor in that too. But we'll talk about that later because I've noticed heat really impacts my exercising heart rate.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Right, right. You lived in Texas for a long time. So you're probably seeing a difference in that in San Francisco. Uh, that's really everything you wanted to know about resting heart rate, at least hopefully. And more. Yeah, we covered a lot there. The studies were really, really um in-depth and fascinating. So we wanted to share a lot of facts from those. Uh, so that's your resting heart rate, but what about your heart rate when you're working out? So I think the most important number to know in relation to your heart rate when you're working out is your max heart rate. And this is the highest number of beats per minute your heart can pump when it's under high stress, like exercise. So I think this is really interesting as well. Um, you know, I have a low resting heart rate and so do you, but when I exercise, I can crank the heart rate up pretty quickly. Like if I if I start to put in, you know, a a good effort, my heart rate will go up pretty fast. Um, especially with running compared to cycling. I can really control my heart rate more um when I'm cycling. But um, yeah, running, I if I do a heavy effort, it'll, you know, you can look at the chart over the course of the exercise, especially when it's hot. I mean, you'll you'll start to peek out towards max heart rate sometimes in the heat. So you have to be really careful with that.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Totally. I'm so glad we're getting into this because this is the part of the heart rate um monitoring that's always mystified me is um what your max heart rate should be, what these heart rate zones are that we're supposed to be in. And I have to confess I haven't paid much attention to it. So maybe this will make me a believer.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Maybe so. Um, so let's talk about let's talk about max heart rate a little more. You can estimate maximum heart rate using a formula. And I remember when I was young, they always said it's 220 minus your age. Um, and this is like it's kind of similar to like how you're you know dividing up your stock portfolio getting towards retirement. It's what it reminded me of when I was looking at this data. But um, now there's a more modern formula. Oh, cool. Um I might have to like actually put this in the podcast description because it's like getting into um, you know, numerical operators and it's 208 minus 0.7 times your age. 208 minus 0.7 times your age. This formula should give you a pretty accurate estimate of your max heart rate, but again, this can be quite variable for people. Uh and you you can kind of square it up with data from your fitness watch on a very heavy effort. So, for example, if I climb up a long hill at an intense pace on my bike, I've seen my heart rate hit 190, 191, 192 at like max effort. The formula tells me that my max heart rate is about 186. So I know it's somewhere right in that range. Um, on on uh I do on occasion races on Zwift, which we've talked about, the virtual cycling in the past. And there's uh you have to register for a website for uh um Zwift Racing. It's called Zwift Power, and it has everybody's like you can see everybody in the race, their data. And I see people are hitting way over 200 on their heart rate, on their max heart rate. So again, this is something that again, you've got this formula, but it may be very different for you uh compared to the formula.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

You can actually see people's heart rate in that data at that time.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Yeah, on the races, it people elect to share it. But again, I would argue that you really want to be careful with that, because if you are going significantly above this formula, um, I think it's something you'd want to talk to your doctor about because it's supposed to be pretty accurate. I mean, we're not physicians, but again, this is something you really want to pay attention to because going above your max heart rate or spending a lot of time at max heart rate can be dangerous. Um, and I've seen various estimates of what was safe when I was um researching this, but basically the main thing is that you should only be spending time in this zone in short bursts, ex me climbing up a steep hill on my bike or doing a hit workout or sprinting. Uh here's a here's a quote I found actually from an article in Runner's World called Five Max Heart Rate Training Myths Busted. Uh great clickbait title there. It says, quote, most people have one to two minutes max at their max heart rate. Highly trained athletes may have more. And this is Sherry Minor. She's a sports medicine physician and an age group Iron Man athlete at Andrew Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center, which I believe is in the state of Alabama. And so uh it's where all the athletes go for their sports injuries, I believe. So um it's she she goes on, quote, expect to see your performance suffer very quickly if you try and maintain your max heart rate for more than just a short burst. So you want to be really careful about being in this kind of area zone of your max heart rate. And that's why I think it's the most important heart rate number you can know for exercise.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Absolutely. I'm gonna start following this more closely. I am a believer now. The other thing, in addition to max heart rate, um, I've heard a lot about throughout my whole, I guess, fitness life is heart rate zones. You know, sometimes you'd go to the gym and they'd be posted on the wall, you know, like a red, yellow, or green type thing. So I've never taken the time to learn much about it, but I've always been curious. So for this uh episode, I did kind of dig into it a little bit more. So, you know, your apps and your smart devices will now calculate them for you, which is great because I remember that's probably why I didn't pay more attention, is because it required a little bit of math, which is not my strong suits.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah, I mean, neither we're we're creative, we're more writers.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah, uh English major here. So anyway. Um, but now these apps will track track them for you. I have noticed that on my fitness app, it tells me when I'm in these different zones. So, according to Runner's World, um, people most widely use heart rate ranges developed by the heart rate monitor company Polar, which I remember. I had one of those polar straps way back when around my chest. Do they really? Yeah. Cool. So this was based on their research in the 1970s, and they identified these zones as follows. So zone one would be very light, 50 to 60 percent of your max heart rate. Zone two is light, that's 60 to 70 percent of your max. Zone three moderate, 70 to 80 percent, zone four hard, 80 to 90 percent of max heart rate, and then zone five, very hard, 90 to 100% of max heart rate. So that's when you're hitting your max heart rate or maybe even above, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yeah, yeah. And I think these are really useful if you're doing specific training like long running or you know, a race.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

General sense of what you're doing, right? Right. And again, that max heart rate. Like you don't want to be working out all the time in the hard or very hard categories. If you're hitting that percentage of your max heart rate in all your training, that's not healthy.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

I have to confess something here, actually.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Uh this goes to my like perfectionist tendencies. So my watch tracks this all the time and it'll buzz me when I transition between these different zones. Mine's very simple, it just does three. Uh it does like a fat burn zone, which is the lower end cardio, and then uh peak, what they call peak, which is closer to my max heart rate. And uh, if it drops below peak, I always feel like, oh, I should be working harder. But actually, it's probably where I want to be, right? If I'm doing a cardio workout, I should be in the cardio zone, not maxing out the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Three seems like it's not enough zones. But then every I have seen every product that I have because I have like different, you know, I have like my Garmin Watch, and then I have a Wahoo Fitness bike computer, uh, and Strava has heart rates. Like they all have different zones, it's very confusing.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

It's confusing.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

That's why I think it's like a general guide, but you like I wouldn't try to peg all my training like today I'm zone two only. It's just number one, it would be really hard. But like definitely you don't want to be in these upper zones all the time, and you want to moderate and try to mix up your workout. So I think it's a good general guide.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah. So what are your key takeaways from all of this information we've looked at?

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah, absolutely. So I've got three. Okay. Uh, first one, very basic: use a wearable device for estimated heart rate data. Track your resting heart rate, track your heart rate during exercise. I actually did not used to do this. Me either. And actually, the reason I didn't do it, because I know my heart rate tends to go pretty high when I exercise. And like, especially when I was training for like half marathons and trying to hit certain targets, like, oh, I want to do this in under two hours. Like, I know I'm getting up into that, you know, high max zone sometimes. And it's like, in my mind, I was like, I don't want to know. Like, which is a horrible attitude. Like, I literally had the thought of like, well, if I drop dead, you know, I drop, I will at least it's like, no, that's not that's a terrible attitude. So if you have health anxiety, this might be the type of thing where like I was really worried about like tracking my heart rate or wearing one of these watches because I thought I'm gonna be fixating on it all the time. But actually, it was quite reassuring to me because once I started tracking this, I'm like, oh, I have a really good resting heart rate. So I don't I don't see any downside. It actually had the opposite effect for me of what I thought it would, which was like, oh, I'm I'm you know, very healthy in terms of heart rate. So yeah, yeah, I think it's really important. It could shine a light on how hard you are working. Are you working too hard in your workouts? Uh, and also again, this idea that if you have a change in your your resting heart rate, um it would be good to consult a doctor because something could be uh wrong with your health. Second tip watch the Max heart rate. If you're spending too long at the top of your range, it's dangerous. It's not good for your training routine. It's not good for your recovery. You could end up overtraining. You could end up having a serious health issue. Watch the max heart rate. And then finally, number three, you don't have to religiously track your heart rate zones. So we talked about the zones here, but try to vary your workouts, like I was just saying. Some of your workouts could be harder, some of them could be moderate, and you want to work in recovery type workouts from time to time as well. The heart rate data gives you a good sense of this, even while you're exercising. Like if I'm doing a recovery bike ride, I know I don't want to go over for me, I don't want to go over like 130 beats per minute. So that I can actually look at my bike computer and say, I need to slow down or I need to stop climbing this hill so fast. So again, those zones kind of vary depending on your your heart rate data, but I think they can be really beneficial in a general sense in tracking your workouts. How about you, Jen? What tips do you have?

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah, for me, I think my first tip would be watch your patterns. So, like you, Alex, I don't religiously track my heart rate, but if my resting heart rate starts to creep up or if my max heart rate is higher than usual, I try to check in with myself and say, you know, is maybe something's going on. So this happened a couple of weeks ago. I actually blogged about this last week, but I was in a period of really intense work stress and working these really long days. And then if I could, I'd squeeze in a run at the end of the evening. And I found my heart my max heart rate was actually higher than usual. And I was actually starting out at a baseline heart rate that was higher than usual for a workout. So I started wondering like, what's is there something going on? And I think I was already kind of in that stress fight or flight mode before I even started working out. So then I tried to do some other things to manage my stress because I realized, you know, this is starting to impact me physically as well. So I think anytime your patterns are changing, it's a good idea to either at least check in with yourself, maybe check in with your doctor to see if there might be something going on, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, and even you mentioned stress, that can be one thing that could cause your heart rate to go up higher than normal during a workout or or shoot up. I remember when you had that as well. Um also uh one thing I saw was dehydration. So if you're dehydrated, that can really impact your heart rate during a workout as well. But good to be watching this.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Yeah, absolutely. And then my second one, if you do feel something's off, don't ignore it. So um, you know, just not with this has doesn't have anything to do with monitoring, but the first time I had heart palpitations, I talked to my doctor about it. And we talked about this a little bit more in depth on a previous episode, and it ended up being nothing to worry about. But, you know, if you feel like there's something just not quite right, talk to somebody about it, talk to a health professional about it, just to make sure. Um, and then my third one is be mindful of the temperature. So I way back when when I had one of these polar straps, and I was trying for a brief period of time to run in certain heart rate zones, like very religiously. And I was running in Texas, living there at the time, in the middle of summer. It was 80, 90, sometimes pushing a hundred degrees when I went out to run. And I could not keep my heart rate in a the I was like maxing out even at a pretty moderate pace. And then I got just completely frustrated because I felt like I should be able to maintain the same pace. Over time, I realized that you know, heat stress puts so much stress on your heart that really you have to adjust your effort to compensate. But I just at first I found it incredibly frustrating. So, you know, you have to take all these factors into account and really just pay attention to your body and don't try to push it beyond your natural limits.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Yeah, I think for me too, that was one of the reasons I didn't want to track it for a long time because I know you know we're working out, you know, half the year and pretty strong heat here in Texas. So it's like, oh, I don't want to know because I know it's high. But no, it's like you said, you definitely need to adjust your effort in that type of weather. So that's those are awesome tips, Jim. I think we've covered it all when it comes to heart rate. If listeners have thoughts, please feel free to leave comments over on the podcast at practically.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Yeah, for next week, we're gonna talk about body work. So this encompasses all kinds of things from massage to cupping, cold laser, ice therapy, which I used to use pretty heavily. We're gonna uh dive into all of this, the science behind it, what is worth your time and what's not, and share some practical tips as always.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Oh, yeah, I'm excited about that. We're also working on lining up some uh more podcast interviews. Yeah. So stay tuned for that. Uh, but until next week, until we talk about bodywork, uh, remember you can go over to practically.fit, sign up for our newsletter. We have great weekly content that we can send directly to your inbox. Um, if you have, again, comments on the podcast or stories you'd like to share, please feel free to comment over at practically. But until next week, remember that fitness is for everybody.