How Hard Is It To 70% MHR?

**kyjelly** · 04-08-2006, 08:28 AM

For my bike cardio, I need to be at 130 to 140. And this is beats per minute correct? Maybe the pulse reader on my bike is broken. It always seems to stick around 98 or so, when it feels like Im working pretty good. So Im just wondering about how hard do you have to go to get to that range? Do you just slowly go faster and faster for about 10 min warm up? or do you go at a constant pace and it will go up? Thanks guys.

**C_Bino** · 04-08-2006, 08:44 AM

It is really hard to tell since its an individual thing. 70% MHR is not hard to get to though, I always stick around 65% or 70% for cardio. For me this usually correlates to 10cal's/minute. But its really hard to tell because everyone is so different in this aspect. But I get to 70% MHR just by walking on the treadmill on an incline, so I dont even need to jog or run to reach it.

**NotSmall** · 04-08-2006, 09:19 AM

Yesterday I bought myself a heart rate monitor and this morning I did my cardio in the 60-70% range for the first time and I was amazed how easy it was, like Bino said, just walking on an incline @ 3.7 mph kept me hovering at 70% (135 bpm)
Prior to this I have been running with no incline for 4 miles @ 6mph which really takes it out of me but does give me a real sense of achievement, today I hardly felt like I'd done anything - on the upside though I think there will be fewer skipped am cardio sessions from now on!
Am I right in thinking that by limiting your heart rate to 60-70% of your max you don't actually burn more fat than if you run your ass off but you reduce/eliminate catabolism?

**kyjelly** · 04-08-2006, 09:37 AM

I thought it was rather easy too, but my bike moniter says like 94-99. I guess i'll give it another shot. But Im starting to think its broken.

**NotSmall** · 04-08-2006, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by kyjelly

I thought it was rather easy too, but my bike moniter says like 94-99. I guess i'll give it another shot. But Im starting to think its broken.

More than likely, my treadmill has a built in heart rate monitor and the reading on it bears no relation to the reading on the new heart rate monitor I just bought.

**MartyMcFly** · 04-08-2006, 01:06 PM

It is very easy. Everyone doing cardio in the morning is busting ass and me and my buddy and doing about 56 rpm on the elliptical. People look at us like we are crazy. I have found that almost every heartrate monitor on a machine is off but they are off consistantly IMO. I take my heart rate for 10 sec and multiply by 6 to get an estimate