HR and recovery times

Hi

I've recently started wearing a Polar HR monitor when working out. It's a lot of info and a lot to learn.

One question that arises with me is that it seems I have very long recovery times. Once I start a workout session I rarely go below 155. Kind of stay between 160-180 no matter what I do. When the session is over It'll be maybe ten minutes before I'm down to 120. I talked to my spinning instructor about this today and she said she'll drop down to maybe 80 as soon as she lets off and gives us a break for water.

I want to do Intervals based on my HR and don't really know where to set my recovery limit. It was when my instructor suggested 80 and I suggested 150 that this discussion begun.

I'm 52 with a HRmax of 190 and HRmin of 45. I ride my bike to work every day and do 3-5 workouts in the gym a week. I take one or two complete resting days every week.

So do different people react so differently to physical activity or am I just not in such good shape as I thought I was. I do have problems with my oxygen debt, since I am very resistant to lactacid. This has me huffing and puffing for a long time after I let off on the tempo. Ie I can keep going on will power alone but the penalty is that it takes me a long time to catch up on my breathing when slowing down. I don't know if this can be related.

No I don't smoke, but I did until 15 months ago. Just being interested in a topic like this today is really marvelous. A year ago I might have posted a thread something like 'What is oxygen' and expected answers like 'that's what you feed astronauts'

Recovery time speeds up with training.

Look at the book: SERIOUS Training for Endurance Athletes. I think you will find it very helpful.

Sling Skate

Buy ALTOIDS!!! Thanks for the support UK.

What's important is the initial drop within one minute of stopping exercise. According to the research, if your HR drops more than 12 bpm after 60 seconds, you're doing fine. My Polar HRM shows me dropping 30-35 bpm after two minutes, even though it tapers off much more slowly after that, much like yours.

Before I thought my own HR dropped from 150 bpm to about 135. Not bad, but not as great as I thought. Then I got a HRM and discovered I was actually dropping from 175 bpm to 150 in the course of coasting up the driveway, getting off my bike and starting to take my pulse!

Take readings every 15-30 seconds after stopping your interval, and note when your HR starts to level out. Then set it to that.

I'm 43 with a HRmax of 192 and RHR of about 52. I'd say you're not too bad a shape. (In fact my goal is to get my RHR below 50!)

You're unique, just like everyone else.

I'll keep an eye on that.

Thanks. That's exactly the kind of tips I was looking for

Have you tested your RHR while sleeping as the Polar manual recommends? Mine is about 55 just laying down and relaxing. However when I put my HR monitor on early one sunday morning and went back to sleep for another two hours it recorded as low as 45.

Darn. You saw right through me.

I find it difficult to read my HRM when I'm asleep.

I try the lay-down-and-rest and the early-waking methods and got it reliably down to 52. It's been lower, perhaps 50 or 51, but I couldn't sustain it for more than a momentary reading. One time I'd fallen asleep with the HRM and woke up in the middle of the night, and I _thought_ it registered lower, but I was so groggy I couldn't remember clearly.

There's a moment of semi-deep sleep where it feels as if my heart takes extra slow, extra powerful beats

You'll get there I can tell. Either by developing your yoga or your aerobics