Exercise and heart rate query

[SNOWMANdymoo]

Apparently my target heart rate for fat burning exercise is around the 150 mark. Tonight i did half an hour on my cross trainer but almost had to do nothing as my heart rate was at 147 with me just doing a steady pace. It almost felt as if i was cheating.

So, was i still burning fat or have i missed something here?!

I think 140 is enough - thats what my dad always says and he runs marathons

so what i did tonight was ok then? I wasnt being lazy?!

God no, and when I used to do more than 140 at the gym the red light used to come on so I think 140 is probably more than enough.

ohmygod, I was going to ask the same question - My heart rate goes up to 170, sometimes 180. According to my calculations it should only go up to 159, but when I am at that rate I am not even sweating, this is on the cross trainer too. When I start using my arms and go like billy'o thats when my heart rate goes up to over 170. It does not take long to get down to below 159 though. I have been going to the gym fairly frequently, and feel alot fitter then I used too. But my heart rate worries me.

Great thread, hope some others can help us.

Muckyanthea - i use the cross trainer too and when i use the arm levers my heart rate goes through the roof so i just hang on to the front bar!

I can do 35/40 mins at around 150 (target 159) with no trouble and with hardly anu sweating! I thought exercise was meant to be hard work!

However, dh says that as you get fitter then you will have to gradually work harder to get your heart rate up.

I guess until then we should just make the most of it!

this might be naughty but I don't trust the machines - esp. as they tell you you burn more on cross trainer than tredmill even though I know I am working harder on the treadmill. I do it by my body now - as long as I am breathing hard but still able to speak (I don't start chatting but just imainge it) I know I am working at the right level.

The fat burning heart rate depends on lots of things: age, resting pulse etc so can't understand why the equipment has a generalised optimum HR.

Anyway burble burble but that's my cynical view.

im using a proper heart rate band and watch type thing now.

tbh i do the same as you anyway and imagine talking while im exercising (sometimes i do actually talk!)

I'm going to get myself one of those heart gadgets and test it out.

To be honest, after wearing my pedometer on the cross trainer once, and it telling me I had burnt alot LESS calories then the cross trainer was telling me I had, I have now become untrusting of the cross trainers workout results. The cross trainer at my gym asks for age and weight, this is 'supposed' to give a more accurate record for your heart rate, but I guess unless you wear a heart monitor you have no idea of accuracy.

I shall just keep going like hell for leather on the cross trainer anyway, I only have a small heart ['it looks like a peanut' so my BF told me once after looking at an xray of my chest], so the smaller the heart, the harder it works out, the higher the heart rate...perhaps?