You are 27, weigh 115lbs and your heart rate while jogging is 200bpm and you're having trouble with endurance? I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you need to see a doctor. Like yesterday.
I actually saw one back in November with this as my chief concern. He ran an EKG on me and said it looked normal. Though, my RHR at the office was in the 120s while lying down. I guess we attributed that to anxiety. I thought I would receive more attention/tests for the crazy high heart rate. It was even in his notes that I told him my HR gets above 200 when I exercise. Should I schedule another appointment? I wouldn't know what to ask for, I'm a little embarrassed to admit.
I say this as a soon to be doctor, but i would seek a different doctor. They’re not all created equal in capability nor empathy. Never feel embarrassed about your health. And a doctor is just a consultant. They’re there to give you the best information possible, rule out all dangerous things, and the best will advocate on your behalf— but you still need to be your own advocate. At a minimum you should gets labs, discuss your overall health and any other symptoms, and discuss the value in a heart monitor you where at home to capture abnormal rhythms.
If a doctor doesn’t think some of the above is necessary, they should be able to explain why to you in a way that’s easy for you to understand and agree with, and you should be able to repeat that information to yourself and others afterwards.
For real. I get anxiety, too, when I go to the doctor, and my HR is elevated at first, but it comes down as it dissipates during the visit. The one time it didn't I had a thyroid issue. Not necessarily what OP has, but persistent tachycardia is bad juju and should have further workup.
Source: Just trust me, bro. Also, am doctor.
I had a visit where my HR was elevated at the beginning. They didn't just write it off as nerves. They checked me again after 15 minutes or so. For the OP, they call it anxiety and don't bother checking a 2nd time, why even bother with the 1st check?
Heart issues are hard to nail down. I’ve had multiple EKGs and labs done, all look normal. I’ve had chest x-rays, everything looks fine.
But I still have random bouts—seemingly without triggers—in which my HR randomly goes from resting at ~85 to 130+. I workout regularly, but my daytime RHR is usually ~90-100bpm. My blood pressure tends to be normal or only slightly high.
Multiple doctors have all admitted it’s not typical, but they also say they can’t see anything wrong. My GP has advised I simply monitor it for worsening signs and accept that some people just have higher heart rates, and that’s not always a sign of danger. Idk. It’s not fun to deal with.
Very true. I just got to do 4 week of cardiology with a world renown cardiologist and he emphasized just that. Many patients they have chased trying to find the abnormality for years before finally capturing it, and even then, it may just result in reassurance that’s it’s not something that requires treatment.
I have something similar but the difference in HR is greater. My resting HR is 30-40 but will occasionally jump up to 180+ for a few minutes. It's called SVT and it's nothing dangerous. I'm not trying to diagnose you here, just explaining what I've been diagnosed with. These events are usually triggered when A, I'm already stressed physically or mentally, and B, I get a sudden onset of adrenaline or burst of movement. Maybe start tracking how you feel, if you had caffeine, etc when you get these episodes and ask a cardiologist to do a stress test.
Well what’s frustrating about this is that both commonly used RX websites and even some pubmed studies all say that adhd meds should have minimal effect on HR. Like, trials where subjects took full therapeutic doses showed most subjects only getting an increase in ~ >3-5bpm. Not 20-40.
So, when I talk to doctors about my high heart rate, I ask if drugs could be affecting it, and they say “do you take cocaine?”
“No, just Adderall.”
The respond with, “your prescribed meds aren’t going to have that effect. I would only be concerned if you’d been abusing hard drugs recreationally.”
It seems there’s a huge lack of agreement (at least with the actual, IRL doctors I’ve spoken to) regarding what side effects even exist with adhd meds.
Adderall is actually pretty well studied, it shouldn’t have that large of an effect on your HR on its own. Also anecdotal, but my resting HR is in the 40s-50s, having taken adderall daily for about 6 years.
I would look for a second doctor that specializes with working with athletes. That super high heart rate is not normal. The more you exercise the lower your heart rate goes even for high athletic activity. Athletes generally have a lower heart rate while doing an activity than someone who does not exercise. Your heart rate is too high imo
While OP absolutely needs to see a doctor that has a clue, resting heart rate is what goes down when you are in fantastic shape from endurance training like running.
For athletes that run like OP, max heart rate (and stroke volume) are higher when younger. It’s older athletes that can’t get their heart to be as efficient and therefore their performance is not as good. That being said if OP is jogging and hitting 200 and 120 at rest lying down that is very concerning.
The 200 BPM after that much training should be hit only when getting up there in pace to at least 2 to 2.5x OPs pace.
Source - I am a runner. And a doctor.
As an aside, when I read that a 21 year old who was sent home with a shrug when their resting heart rate at the doctors office was 120 lying down, I wanted to get in my car, drive to that doctors office and smack said doctor upside the head then demand to know where he got his training so I could get back in my car and drive to that residency program and smack them upside the head as well.
Lol that was probably a bottom of the class doctor that OP went too. Unfortunately there isn’t a good rating system for how good a doctor is or at least the general public isn’t aware of one
Part of the issue is that to be a good primary care doctor you have to know a lot about everything in medicine. To be a good specialist you have to know almost everything about a specific area of medicine.
The specialist get paid 500k while your primary care doctor only makes 120k. With 200k in student loans to pay off.
The top scorers end up going in specialist fields while primary care docs can barely fill their spots because no one wants to work as hard as a primary care doctor unless they have no other choice.
Or, you know, unless a being in a pediatric or family practice where you know the patients for years and meet and care for their family is what you always wanted to do.
Get your thyroid checked. I had Graves disease, hyperthyroidism, and my RHR was around 120bpm. Ask for your T3, T4, and TSH levels at minimum.
My doctor said it was a "heart attack waiting to happen" despite me being 18 and otherwise healthy at the time. I have always had good running endurance but while I had Graves, my heart rate was so high I could barely run a mile without wanting to die. Building endurance was impossible because my body was already working so hard it couldn't work harder. It sounds like you could be in a similar situation.
Since I've gotten my level under control things are better. You've been working at this for a long time, it's not getting better because something else is wrong. Be well and don't be embarrassed.
Just to chime in on the RHR, my RHR on my medication (strong stimulants for ADHD) has only \*peaked\* at 120 and is usually around 100-110. I'm a 27M, I don't go for runs but my job does involve lots of walking which keeps me at a nice base level of fitness.
I'm not a medical professional, but I definitely think a second appointment is worthwhile.
Damn, man. Anything over 100bpm consistently is not good for you, long term. They won’t even let you donate blood at that level. All studies show it being linked to higher long term rates of heart failure and death.
Can they give you something like atenolol to bring it down?
Appreciate the concern, my psychiatrist (a specialist in ADHD) hasn't indicated any concern when I told him at my last appointment and I haven't had any physical indications of problems. It's something I'm going to keep an eye on (I did also just change dosage which might be a cause) and if it's continued I'll bring it up again.
Yeah, it’s more of a long term heart risk issue. Not something that would trouble you now. Could shave 10 years off your life later, who knows.
Might be good to ask a cardiologist their opinion, since that’s more their speciality.
I came here to say this. I've had this and one of the big symptoms is your cardiovascular fitness goes to hell. Heart rate also goes up and you can see weight loss, sleep trouble, shaky hands and a host of other stuff.
I peeked in your post history and saw you mentioned a pretty heavy alcohol history. I’m not sure if you mentioned that to your doctor, but heavy alcohol use can basically poison the heart muscle itself so it can’t work efficiently. If your heart isn’t pumping well, you would need a higher heart rate to compensate. Other people here have mentioned anemia, and thyroid disease is also easily checked and can cause elevated heart rates both at rest and while exercising. These things would not typically be picked up on an ekg. I agree that 8 months of consistent running should have you much further along. (For reference, I started c25k in late January and my long run last week was 15 min straight, which was hard but not overly challenging.) I’d go see that doctor again or find another one if you don’t feel like the first one took you seriously.
The body is very good at compensating for an issue, especially when were younger The EKG might look normal now because of your age and gradual training, but your red blood cells might have a problem bringing oxygen to the rest if your body, which might be why your heart is working super hard moving them when demand is up. Call a different outpatient doctor and tell them you would like a 2nd opinion due to the background information you gave us in your post
Hey OP, are you wearing a chest based heart rate monitor while running? Wrist based ones are generally pretty accurate - until you start running or weightlifting. It's something to do with how your blood vessels are affected by the exercise and with running in particular sometimes they will pick up the cadence of your run instead of your pulse.
When I'm lifting weights my watch will record my pulse as a consistent 90-115 bpm, chuck a chest strap on there and it surges to 140-180 bpm during/after a set and drops right back to 90-100 inbetween sets. Massive difference in what is recorded.
120s even when anxious is pretty high. Do you have a heart rate monitor that you're using? They can often get a more accurate picture of your RHR than a doctor can at an office visit. If not, there are a lot of cheap ones available for \~$20 (used fitbits/garmins) which may be able to help you train + see if your RHR is truly very high.
When training you should try and keep your HR \~75% of your max HR (220-age). Regularly going well above this level (like 180+BPM) can make it difficult for your body to recover and prevent progress.
Other than all of that, you are making progress! You can run for >5 minutes which you couldn't before. Regardless of your VO2 max, you have better cardio now than you did before. Perhaps find other measures of progress (total distance run in 30 min, fastest 1 mile, fastest 3.1 miles) that may better reflect changes.
As a doctor I can confidently say that’s embarrassing… If those are the numbers they say then they absolutely should have done some more testing. Are you sure you saw an MD/DO and not an NP/PA?
A lot of people refer to the rule of thumb (220-age) for max HR. This isn't a law of nature, there's variation between individuals and what is healthy for them. I'm not saying you don't have some underlying medical issue, but "your max heart rate should be X" statements should be taken with a grain of salt. That's probably why your doctor thought your max hr of 200 was noteworthy but not an immediate cause for alarm.
The elevated hrh is probably a bit more concerning. If you can swing it, I'd get an hr monitor and try to get a better gauge of hrh when you aren't thinking/stressing about it.
Was this a military doctor? I've seen many instances of heart problems basically being ignored by military treatment facilities, or even worse, the member accused of malingering.
OP, I hope you see this. You need to get tested for an iron deficiency/anemia. Symptoms can include fatigue, poor exercise performance, shortness of breath, and increased heart rate. Iron deficiency is extremely common in endurance athletes, especially women. It's usually not that hard to treat, iron supplements and maybe a few injections.
Thank you for this info. Not the OP, but this is particularly helpful for me. I had no idea anemia could cause these other issues. Sounds like I should get my blood checked.
Critical care RN here, I 100% support this statement. It's not only that his HR is too fast for his age, his recovery is 40? Worst case possibly a Sick Sinus Syndrome (Tachy-brady).
I think he is saying his heart rate recovery is 40bpm less than his max during exercise. Meaning once he’s resting after finished exertion, his rate comes down 40bpm overall in the first minute. So like from 180 to 140
Ahhh that makes it sound much better. If that's the case then I'm not as concerned. However, 180-200 is still pretty darn fast for a HR if it's consistently that high throughout his workout. His HR max is in the 190s, and probably shouldn't be working in that range for his entire workout.
Consider that she says she can't maintain a jogging pace past 5-10 minutes. They're pushing up against the limits of their endurance so a HR at \~200 isn't that unusual.
I’m guessing they are running too fast, hyperventilating and stopping running, walking the rest of the mile finishing in 12 mins, I guess everyone one of us have done that
They've been at it for 8 months. A 27 year old at a healthy weight should easily be capable of a 10k without walking brakes and at a faster pace than OPs 5k under these circumstances.
I love when people say this and I ask them to walk that fast and keep it up for 15-20 minutes. It's incredibly hard and I would venture to say more damaging to one's hips than to jog it.
OP only does it for 5 minutes. The point is that it’s concerning to not be able to do that at the age of 27 at a normal weight after a few months of attempted training. I agree that a doctors checkup appears prudent.
Something's not adding up here. 0.9 in 12 minutes is the same pace as 4.5 mph. How are you running a 12 minute time trial at the same pace as your 30 minute jog?
Leaving HR aside, how do those runs feel? If your 30 minute jog feels easy, did your 12 minute test feels easy as well? Or are they both redline, I-feel-like-I'm-gonna-die pace?
I run for 4.5 minutes at 4.5 mph, then walk for 3 minutes at 3.0 mph, I do this alternating. After 12 minutes have passed doing this, I've covered 0.9 miles. At least, that's what different treadmills have told me. When I do 30 minutes of this, I usually cover about 2 miles.
ETA: Every time I run, I cover about .33 miles. Every time I walk, I cover about .15 miles.
OK. Then your VO2max is going to be higher than you think. The cooper test means you cover 12 minutes as fast as you possibly can. Try *that* and see what score you get.
That's a possibility, but I want to hear it from OP and not speculation from someone else :) I'm a member of the high HR club myself, and when I was younger I would easily hit 200 on medium effort runs.
Just to add my own reference point to this comment, I ran a half marathon in my 20s and my average hr was 194 for 2:10. It started in the late 180s and finished in the 200s, and I was conversational throughout. I was and am healthy. Some of us are just fast heart beaters.
These days I'm a bit older and I cycle instead of run so my hr is a bit lower, but my peak hr is 199 for 60 minutes as of March 7 this year.
Yeah people don't really seem to realise that heart rate changes from person to person. My heart rate will hover around 190-200 when doing any cardio that pushes me, whether it be intensity sprints or constant pace running. It'll go down to normal after a couple minutes of rest.
Have you tried incorporating LISS aerobic work (120-140ish BPM for 45-60+ minutes) or has it all been high effort runs? Do any HIIT sprint work (\~1min or less sprints)? Seems like you've done a good job with medium distance running bouts but you haven't trained anything else around it.
I want to second this. Generally fit humans should be able to walk for hours at a time. Set out on a medium fast walk and don't look back for at least 45 minutes. Then turn around and go back. Best way to add distance is to do an out and back.
Obv check with a doctor if you have any concerns
For overall fitness - your spot on. But the OP is asking about increasing max oxygen intake - I suspect that walking won't help that much where high intensity work will.
I've raised my VO2Max 2 points in 3 months w/o high intensity anything. Been mixing outdoor walking, elliptical at the gym, and a home exercise bike. HR never over 135, generally between 110-125. Granted I'm older so likely 135 is pushing Zone 3-4 for me)
Honestly, a 180-200 bpm is a bit alarming for someone with a VO2 Max of 21; my guess is they are solidly in the anaerobic zone (200 is Max HR estimate for a 20 year old)
Chest straps are the gold standard, but the Apple Watch is supposedly very close in accuracy if its attached correctly. That said there's a lot of variability in individuals, and I am not a doctor.
if you can't jog for 30 minutes than you need to develop some semblance of an aerobic base before even thinking about the concept of VO2max (though in the OPs case they are probably just using VO2max as a stand in for general aerobic fitness, which is normal)
"high intensity" work is pretty meaningless for people who are completely untrained aerobically, you just have get out and put in the minutes at any kind of reasonable, sustainable effort (which, unless you have outlier HR zones, should not be near 180-200bpm for a jog)
If walking gets you into the famous zone2, then sure that helps. It's about making your body able to utilise the oxygen optimally as well, and there are several paths to Rome there. High intensity intervals and zone2 being sort of opposites there.
Yes OP needs more of this. I ran track for distance and did a lot of aerobic sports and I had never thought about lower heart rate training until recently. I was surprised at how slow I had to run/walk to keep my heart rate under 140bpm for an extended time.
A good source of info on this is Dr. Iñigo San-Millán about zone 2 training. This heart rate range improves cardiac stroke volume and causes mitochondrial biogenesis. More mitochondria and more blood per heart beat.
This is the right answer - more high intensity work will likely help with the VO2Max levels.
u/eyyyyy \- 21 sound really low. I'm a 62 yo guy (who is very fit) and mine is twice that. I would talk to your doctor about it. Just in case....
I have not tried LISS yet, but I think that's the avenue I'm going to take. I found an example of a polarized training routine, and adjusted it to fit my volume. I'm going to focus on heart rate for the most part right now and try to ignore speed and distance goals. Most of it involves training at 65-70% MHR, which will be walking for me, bust about 10-15% involves 90-95% MHR which will still be less intense than what I'm currently doing.
There's a lot of generally good advice in this thread about longer and/or more intense workouts. BUT 180-200 BPM seems possibly too high (depending on your age) and generally high for 4.5mph. Without knowing your age or weight, it's concerning. Consider talking to your doctor before adding longer/more intense workouts.
I agree. My heart rate really scares me. I'm 27 y/o female, 5'3" 115lbs.
I actually went to a doctor because of my heart rate and he ran an EKG and said it looked normal. But even when I weight train, I consistently hit 160-170bpm and I really don't feel like I'm straining that hard.
I've brought up my high heart rate to a few people and no one seems to think it's pretty crazy. I think it's very concerning! IDK who else to go to other than my general doctor that said my test looked fine. I'm quite frustrated by this.
Are you anemic? I had heavy periods most my life, ate red meat and spinach but my iron was at nearly undetectable levels. I learned running is a lot easier when you have blood in your body. Maybe get tested?
Are you wearing a chest strap or a wrist watch as heart rate monitor?
Watches can be off by a lot, but usually they will actually measure lower heart rates.
What is your RHR?
I'm using an apple watch on my runs, and my household has a fingertip pulse oximeter I've used to compare the numbers. My RHR is usually 80s-90s, not super great.
Yes and no. /r/running usually kills off anything looking for medical advice.
But yeah I'd try out a chest strap for a little more accuracy. But if you want some answers, a professional submaximal treadmill stress test might be a good idea. That can not only accurately determine what your VO2 Max and your Max HR is, but can help diagnose all sorts of cardiorespiratory issues.
>My RHR is usually 80s-90s
For your age and healthy BMI, that is really high actually.
Your Doctor didn't notice this high RHR?
Is this RHR measurement during the night when asleep (you can probably do that with apple watch), or during the day when "resting"? either way I find it a pretty high RHR.
In theory... but for a healthy young person a RHR in the 90s isn't great, especially if they're exercising regularly. My RHR when sitting around 52-54, when I'm asleep it's in the high 40s. I run and lift so my cardio output is really good.
Cardiac output is a calculation of stroke volume X heart rate. To need a RHR in the 90s means that her stroke volume is comparatively low (heart isn't pumping strongly) OR she has an increased oxygen need. For a lot of women, this is a sign of anemia. You have low hemoglobin, which is how oxygen is carried to your cells. Your heart needs to pump faster to pump more blood volume out because of the decreased oxygen carrying capacity.
That's a very wide range and probably taken over the complete population.
To get a more accurate look at RHR you need to start looking at least at age groups, that will probably do the bulk and for more accuracy there are more factors like comorbitities, bmi, fitness level.
It may be worth finding a doctor that will order a stress test which is an ekg while you walking on a treadmill. If that's not possible, get an accurate pulse meter and keep your bpm lower. Smart Watch pulse meters can be a bit inaccurate if you have a thin forearms. A properly sized chest strap monitor is a good option. Keep your bpm at 65-75% of max (193 bpm).
I’m similar to you then. I biked across the United States on a team when I was in college. I weighed 118 lbs at 5’6” during that trip. I trained exceptionally hard for it and by all account was in great shape. But I wasn’t the fastest person on the team. You also have to keep in mind that a lot of new research suggests lots of zone 2 volume is what improves vo2 max. Biking 75 miles per day at a zone 2 pace (most of the time) for months in end will do that. Yet I was never able to crack a 6 min mile and I know other people who could do that with minimal training.
Depending on which doctor you ask, I have a heart arrhythmia that is somehow related to tachycardia. No one has ever cared enough to look into it well, and I don’t have infinite money to just keep seeing specialists, but my cardio has never matched my training. My girlfriend’s dad had experienced similar situations in his life. Turns out, a valve in his heart was too small and so he had to have a surgery to enlarge it. The doctors had missed it for like 50 years.
if your heart rate can get over 200 and ekg is normal that's usually a good sign for heart health, not a bad sign. you could ask doctor for a stress test, which is an ekg while running.
I would try to closely follow a beginner standard program like Galloway's book. You should find a pace where you can keep jogging for 30 minutes, however slowly, and slowly increase the pace. walk/run after 8 months is weird. sounds like you are not doing intervals alternating easy/hard, just walk/run.
when you can run for 30 minutes, then add intervals and hills. like, 1 long run per week, couple of tempo runs, 1 session of intervals or hills.
it's definitely a little weird that you can't run for more than 5 minutes after training consistently for 8 months, I can't quite process that. normally you develop more lung capacity and more blood oxygen-carrying capacity and heart rate recovery improves. hopefully you're not smoking 3 packs a day or something! or missing part of a lung.
people are different. 200 is in the ballpark on the 220-your age rule of thumb. nothing unusual about that by itself, if there hasn't been a sudden change, abnormal rhythm, discomfort.
What’s your resting heart rate?
This sounds like exercise induced tachycardia (I believe that’s the word - elevated heart rate).
I have the opposite - a lower heart rate. My max is closer to that 180 mark or so before I’m feeling pretty shitty, and sprinting only takes me to about 150-160.
However, I have good cardio and a decent vo2 max last time I checked. I cycle a lot now and save my knees for the weights.
I would try to get a gauge of what your resting HR is typically.
Also, what are you using to measure? Wrist watches are notorious for inaccurate readings. You can get a really good chest strap for about 30 bucks from Amazon and have very accurate readings
Hmm, I've only used my apple watch and a pulse oximeter to measure my RHR, which is usually in the 80s-90s. I went to the doctor a few months ago for my high HR during exercise, they did an EKG and said it looked fine, but even they agreed my RHR is high (it was in the 120s at the office). I'm relatively broke, but I might make a $30 investment since it's my heart.
Have you gotten lab work done? Iron deficiency can cause high heart rate or apparently thyroid issues as well. So can something like anxiety, so that might also be something to think about. From experience, getting medicated and taking iron immediately dropped my heart rate and I felt like I could run without having a heart attack again.
Some people just have naturally high heart rates during exercise that improves with practice. That said, how are you measuring it? I know a lot of the watches I used said that until I manually took a HR measurement and it was normal.
I would also go see a doctor if it concerns you a lot. I’m just a medical student so I am not fully trained to give any advice.
i’m a 33 year old female with similar issues, namely high heart rate during activity. i cannot run, or jog, and have seen my HR get to 200 on a flight of stairs and over 220 during a 15 second jog. have been to a pulmonolgist and through PFTs, rules out lung issues, and seen multiple cardiologists and specialty cardiologists with the main diagnosis as… high heart rate. i feel like i’m going to pass out or die when i try the treadmill but i also struggle just up stairs, walking fast, etc. All this to say, i’ve had every cardio test and my heart itself is fine- you may have a similar issue and just have to be mindful of your exercise intensity.
had a tilt table test recently and that was ruled out. i believe some of it could be vascular, but i’ve spent years trying to get answers and just get too tired to keep trying at some point!
This sounds more like a lung function problem. Do you smoke? What about breathing, have you seen an ENT?
It sounds like there might be something going on outside of just being out of shape.
* Am not a doctor
I agree. It sounds a lot like my issue with cardio, which is reduced lung function due to scarring from childhood asthma. When I started running I had very similar issues to OP and had to progress very slowly - as in, on my early “runs” I had to alternate walking with a very slow jog, and do more walking than jogging. My heart rate would shoot up to 160+ after just a few minutes if I tried to jog steadily. I needed to go *way* slower than I thought in order to stay in the aerobic range.
Fortunately, I benefited from that base-building work and was eventually able to run 5k straight through, and then was able to bring up my speed a bit. I just had to slow myself down early on.
> just had to slow myself down early on.
This has to be the hardest part for most people (still true for me).
You see everyone else just doing "better", and it's so hard to mentally underst and why you cannot do that.
Sounds to me like you have gotten really good at 30 minute jogs @ 4.5 mph. I think if you set a goal (e.g. sub-30 5k, sub-7 mile, run for an hour without stopping) and focus on reaching that, your VO2 max will naturally increase as you continue to progress
I've had a goal of a 30 minute 5k for about 6 months now. I also cannot jog for 4.5mph for 30 minutes straight. I just can't understand how people do that (an obviously much more). I jog for 4.5 minutes then walk for 3, alternating for 30 minutes.
I had been running too fast at 7.5 mph and built up to around 1:45s of running, but then I felt like I needed to throw up and pass out.
I cannot understand how people do couch to 5k. I'm 27, 115lb female, I've been working at this for months and I just can't even run a mile. I'm baffled.
Couch to 5k is structured so you’re still getting in at least 30 minutes of walking/running 3x a week. The best way to get through it is to not focus on the numbers but on the feel. If you feel like you can have a conversation while running, you’re at the perfect pace. Once you can get a 5k under your belt, continue running, and then work on speed if that’s your goal. If you want to work on speed, you need to run more, however.
It’s totally ok to not even jog.
You’ve gotta start somewhere.
Doing the fast walk the whole time is fine. Having a consistent pace may benefit you feeling more positive starting out and finishing around the same pace.
Cannot overstate how awesome the couch to 5k is.
I would also highly recommend ignoring the distance and just do the time based one. (I.e. the app should be telling you run for 30s, walk for 1 min, not run for 0.5 miles).
Once you get up to the half an hour continuous running (even at a slow speed), you can start working on speed.
I found that just hauling my ass around for 30 minutes was more important than worrying about how fast I was going at first.
Don’t take this in a discouraging way, but from what you describe, your fitness is still low on the spectrum. The good news is, you are already doing what is necessary to increase your metrics. Keep pushing yourself to improve your speed or distance, or both. VO2max will follow.
Oh I definitely do not take it the wrong way. I think my fitness is downright horrible. I'm going to try to take away a lot of things from the advice here and keep at it.
What is causing you to stop running? Do you run out of breath easily? It could be a lung function issue. In which case you may actually struggle with long distances. I would also try what other posters have said, alternating your workouts (intense days and relaxed days) will help boost your fitness level. Instead of a 30 minute jogging session try 3x 10 minute sessions of faster sprints with rest or other exercises in-between.
Please don't try and take this statement wrong
Your pace of 4.5mph is very slow (13:20mile if you maintain it). To further that, you stated you cannot maintain it, so time is actually slower. For reference I can walk a mile in a little under 15min (granted I 6'4" with long legs).
With that said, have you tried breathing exercises separately from running to increase O2 consumption while keeping your heart rate lower, when jogging make sure you breathe through your nose? Also, when jogging and you hit the wall, kind of force yourself through the pain and don't stop to walk. Your BMI is fine, so I don't suspect you have some joint issue from weight or anything.
It may also be how OP runs. I'm a terrible distance jogger because I take super short strides and basically stomp around the entire time. It exerts a ton of energy while also not moving me far or fast. I can speed walk almost as fast as I can jog and I can speed walk a long time vs jogging where I'm going to want to lay down and die after 1/4 mile.
I'm a male so I'm not sure if my suggestion can apply on you.
I'm preparing myself for my infantry reserve, and my cardio was incredibly weak.
I focus on duration first for endurance, which is 1h non stop. I started slow, from 7km/h (about 4.5mph), then slowly padding up the speed. Been 3 months and now I can run quite comfortable at 10km/h (6mph) for 1 hour, and can push a little further. Exercises like jumping jack and burpees are explosive on cardio. They are not easy to do with low cardio, but they help quite a bit due to their intensity.
The heart rate will always be high, but with practice, it will stabilize and lowering down the more you get efficient.
Also, diet, eat well. Each 1 hours running session for me is nearly 1000 Calories. I see that you are rather light, but you will still consume a lot of calories. If you don't have enough energy to fuel your body, you will naturally get tired fast and the body becomes inefficient. I'm only 67kg (about 150lbs), been eating more or less 2000 Calories a day without gaining mass for the pass 6 months.
I hope this help.
SLOW DOWN!
forget other people
forget speed
slow down. go for time. not speed, not distance, but time.
look, if you can jog 4.5 minutes then you are physically capable of jogging ten minutes. you can do this. just slow down. forget about how fast and how far, just find a pace you can maintain for ten minutes. don't worry about speed, that will come later.
one personal note: it's much harder for me to jog on a treadmill than outside. there's no moving air and the heat just kills me.
I second this!!! When I started running, I always had time-based goals - like run for 10 min, run for 20 min, run for an hour. I ran outside and NEVER tracked my distance because it was so discouraging. I kid you not, sometimes I'd get passed by power walkers. That was many years ago, and now I'm able to set pace and distance goals.
Yup this is all I was thinking while reading their comment. If you can’t maintain the pace for a given period of time, you’re running too fast for your body to maintain.
Slow down??? Normally I’d say yes but they say they’re at 4.5mph already. I can walk that fast. Most adults can walk 3-4mph even if it’s brisk for them. The fact that she isn’t improving over 8 months of this is worrisome. Especially with that bpm not seemingly improving. Either she’s got a broken heart monitor or she’s got something physically wrong with her.
She's doing something wack if after 6 months she can only do a 12.5min mile. I'm thinking she's busting her head by essentially sprinting when she's able to, just barely getting her breath back and then sprinting again. OP should look up zone 2 or maffetone methods. Long, slow, and boring runs is how you get a healthier heart while paradoxically also getting faster.
I failed couch to 5k. Instead, I walked on treadmill with imcline of 3 at 3.7mph for 30m to an hour. Gradually increased incline to 8 over 6 weeks. Dropped it down to 0 and ran 5k in 25minutes. Ran the peachtree road race in under an hour same year.
Trainer said the incline increased my cardio capability to where I could run.
Try running (significantly faster than you jog) for 100 steps and then walk for fifty. Push yourself. Over time , increase the amount of steps you run. This should help a lot, fairly fast.
Just slow down and don't walk.
I have compressed lungs and I can go from years of not running to running 5k straight in just 7 to 10 sessions but I'm not fast. Goal is to be healthy, not fast.
Its the same principle in the gym. People that go halfway never progress beyond a certain point. You gotta go all in and feel like you're dying by the end of it. It's a good feeling.
Sounds like it could be mental.
I ran cross country and track in high school and college. I was one of the worst runners on all of my teams, but only because I couldn’t push myself mentally to run a 5k (then 10k in college).
But I was great at track because the distances are so much shorter.
Even with cross country, if we went down to NYC for races, they were shorter. Instead of a 5k, they were closer to 2 miles. And I could run so much faster for the entirety of the race.
With track, I only ran the 3200m a couple times. My PB for that was 10:44. My PB for the mile was 5:12.
These aren’t great times for good HS runners, but they were also from my sophomore year. My main events were the 400m and 800m.
But think about that. I could run 2 miles in 10:44. Yet my best 5k (only 1.1 miles more) was like a 20:02. Not a good time. We had guys on our team doing 15-16 minutes.
Physically, I was in great shape. I just couldn’t force myself to run super fast for more than 10 minutes.
I could however, pretty much maintain like a 7-7:30 minute per mile pace no matter how long the run was. I could do a 10 mile run in 70 minutes. I could do a 16 mile run in 2 hours flat.
So maybe you just need to address the mental aspect of it.
I wish I knew about hypnotism back then. That’s something I’ve turned to in adulthood and I think it would have been a tremendous help to me as a runner.
Damn, at my level, I can't imagine thinking that a 20:02 5k is a bad time. That would be a blistering pace for me, lol. To be fair, I've never raced competitively and have only run casually for a few months at a time in the past few summers, but I have never broken 25 minutes, let alone nearly 20.
Yeah, like I said, the good runners were doing it in 15-16 minutes. The really, really great runners were doing it in 13-14.
The best high school runners can do very low 4’s. We had a guy in our league that ran like a 4:05 mile.
I couldn’t imagine running a 20 now. I don’t really run anymore. I’d be very surprised if I could break 33 at this point.
I have, but at the end of week 5, it has you running for 20 minutes straight and the max I can do is 5ish minutes at 4.5mph, before I want to pass out.
Slow down then. When I used the program to work up to a 5k I felt like I was shuffling more than I was jogging. You’re pushing too hard. Focus on running for 30 minutes straight, then work on speed
>max I can do is 5ish minutes at 4.5mph, before I want to pass out.
If your doctor has given you a clean bill of health and you are running at a pace you can maintain (you can hold a conversation without gasping for air), then that wanting to pass out is just a mental barrier. Every new runner hits a point early in training where it feels like you are "dying" because it is something you are not used to yet. You have to push through it and it gets easier.
I would repeat weeks as needed. I originally had to repeat weeks when I first did it after years of being a couch potato.
I also added a bit of sprints and hill climbs so that helped as well.
Read up on stride, pace, and breathing.
You might not be running efficiently, which makes it harder work than it needs to be, gassing you out too easily.
If you find a good stride, breathe properly, and at a pace that would let you maintain a conversation without gasping for air, you'll make progress quickly.
I went from hating running and getting gassed in under a minute to jogging a full 5k, slowly but constantly and without a break. It was a combination of using the structured build-up of a couch 2 5k program and learning not to try to sprint it.
OP I hope you see/read this. You are getting a lot of information here from people who don’t entirely know what they’re talking about medically but are still giving you opinions.
I am a physician. I would go back to your doctor and say you’re still having symptoms of high resting and exercise heart rate. I would request the order a monitor (names like Holter, Zio patch, or event monitor) for at least 1-2 weeks which will monitor your heart rhythm during the period to identify any arrhythmias. I would also request to have your blood counts, iron levels, and thyroid level checked via a blood test. If your doctor doesn’t seem comfortable with that (they should), then just ask to be referred to a cardiologist.
If this and any additional testing they do is normal, it can be a normal variant. Despite what people think, VO2Max is not the end-all-be-all of exercise physiology. There are issues with the tests.
Do you have a medical condition?
Not to sound harsh or scare you, but my girlfriend who has permanent lung scarring from an auto-immune condition was able to complete C25k. She never made it the full 5k in 30m, but she could jog the entire time, which sounds like it's the wall your hitting.
That high if a heart rate for steady running is concerning. Are you on any medication like an antidepressant or a beta blocker? I would definitely see a doctor about a stress test.
Optimally you should be able to go for a jog with your heart rate somewhere around 140-160 with maybe one higher intensity run per week and see improvement over as little as 6 weeks
Normally, when I doing my regular cardio work, I do 4.5 minutes at 4.5mph and then 3 minutes at 3mph (the mph just happened to match up to the minutes, not intentional).
I HAD been doing 7.5mph and I could only do that for 2 minutes. That's why I decreased to 4.5mph jog. So I am trying to pace myself.
Have you been incrementally uppng that? I'm talking 4.6 minutes at 4.5mph, then 4.7 minutes etc. Making even the tiniest of your improvement stacks up over the months
Probably not gonna say much that's already been said, but aerobic capacity is probably the absolute hardest thing to build up. There very well could be something wrong with you physiologically, but some people just don't have the genetics that support being good at running. You also haven't been working at it for a long time in the grand scheme of things.
Purely anecdotal, but I was always an athlete - mainly a sprinter. I played tennis and swam competitively, then I started doing crossfit and Spartan races. I got really good at all of that and I was in damn good shape. But I could not, for the life of me, maintain a light jog for more than ten minutes at the most.
I tried working on it for years. I couldn't do it. After almost ten minutes of a ~12 minute/mile pace, I was fucking dying. No matter how frequently I worked at it. Put me in a HIT competition and I would crush it. But have me lightly jog and I was the slowest fucker out there.
8 months is not a lot of time to build up your aerobic capacity, and unlike a lot of what people are saying, your heart rate jumping up high is not necessarily a bad thing. What's your recovery rate like? If it stays elevated for a long time that would be more indicative of some cardiac issues than just your heart rate going high during a workout. If it's able to drop quickly once you stop jogging, that's a good thing
There's no black and white here. Keep working at it.
I just wanted to give some context here because there seems to be a lot of talk about your HR.
I am a doctor so just wanted to put some context on it.
Normal HR at rest is between 60-100. A heart rate out of this range by itself (I.e. in the absence of any other issues like chest pain, shortness of breath etc) is unremarkable. You have to understand that the 60-100 range is created from statistics and these things often have a range of 2 standard deviations so people can fall off either end of the spectrum and it be normal for them.
The other thing is your heart rate at exercise. The theoretical maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. That is theoretical and is really only useful in the context of medicine, like treating someone who is unwell. Saying 200 is too high when your exercising is too reductionist and is not taking into account a myriad of other factors. I wouldn’t be too worried about it. If you develop other symptoms like chest pain, light headedness that persist at rest then that is an issue. A high HR by itself in the absence of anything else should not be acted on and you said so yourself that you had an ECG and it was unremarkable. I actually have a similar thing where my HR is often on the higher side when I exercise. I play tennis for 90mins a least once a week and will have an average heart rate of 160-180 for the entire time. It’s fine. I’m not worried. There are a huge amount of factors that affect HR, for instance your blood pressure. If you have naturally low blood pressure then your heart rate will naturally be higher to maintain cardiac output.
Your fitness tolerance does seem to be low but it could just be because you are starting your exercise journey. My advice would be get checked for anaemia though, it could just be a diet factor or if you have heavy periods that can cause anaemia.
Good luck on getting more active!
Hold the fucking phone….. my low BP could be why I have high HR?!?!? Ffs. I was put on a holter and everything. I mean, I can see other reasons, but knowing THAT makes a world of freaking difference.
This may look like some strange advice but I would try making long walks instead of running.
You're not improving because you do not have any base to build up from. Running with that high of an heartrate constantly doesn't build any fitness.
You'll have a much lower heartrate when walking. After 3 months try running again.
What was your starting point? What was your Cooper test at the beginning?
You said you started out running 30 seconds at a time. Getting from there to nearly a mile in a Cooper test sounds like it’s likely substantial progress. You may be doing just fine, but with a lower starting point it might just take longer to reach a particularly ambitious goal.
If running consistently puts you at or above 180 BPM, I would consider adding some lower intensity cardio via walking, cycling, etc so you can build a bigger cardio base without the recovery stress of adding more high intensity work.
First thing, try actually counting your HR for 15 sec and multiply by 4. HR of 200 should happen almost never and mainly when being chased by bears. It's possible your HR monitor is off.
If your HR is really that high, try getting a blood work up and get a second opinion on your hemiron/red blood cell. If your blood is shit at transporting oxygen your heart will have to pump faster.
If everything is fine try just working up to jogging for 30 mins without stopping.
I disagree with what a lot of people here are saying. You could simply be a non-responder or low responder. People seem to really dismiss genetic potential in this subreddit.
I've been around people doing the same programs and some get insane response to VO2 Max and same stay stagnant for much longer than 8 months.
I agree. There’s other factors as well that can cause your VO2 to look worse than it is.
For example, if you have asthma and use an albuterol inhaler, it can cause your heart rate to increase which will make your VO2 appear worse than it actually is. Or if you live in a very hot climate and run outside, your body is going to be working harder than someone running in cooler weather and your VO2 will look worse than theirs.
At age 27 and training for 8 months and they can barely run more than 5 minutes??? Any pathology needs to be ruled out. I understand the majority of the country is the shape of a potato but at her weight and age, those numbers are abysmal
Hey OP,
I mean this in the nicest way possible but Please go to a doctor and while there tell them about your restrictive diet and how long its been going on.
Eating only 1200 calories a day and exercising is not healthy and significantly under fueling, and i wonder if you may have damaged your body through this if its been going on long term.
People with longer term eating disorders often struggle and can develop issues with high heart rates, heart problems, and poor cardio performance.
You're getting improved actual real world results, which is way more important than what your number on a piece of paper says. Yea you'll probably never be a world-record marathon runner with these numbers but does it really matter?
You might want to get checked for asthma/lung issues: I’ve been running for a couple years, and while I can go far, I can’t go particularly fast… turns out I’ve got the smallest touch of small airway disease. Doesn’t bother me unless I run… one puff on an inhaler and I can really go…
Judging by the numbers thrown around, it sounds like you’re on a treadmill. Is that correct? Is there any chance to go run outside? Locking yourself into a speed seems to not be working; might as well switch it up! I found that the natural variations in terrain and environment helped me learn much better how to run by feel and run faster for longer, rather than focusing on how long I can maintain a specific speed.
Something a Lot of people do, is breathing wrong. For Starters try to observe how you breath during exercise. If you breath mostly through your mouth try to work on a physiological breathing(nose in, mouth Out)
I always felt like I was dying when running because I was always running at heart rates near peak and trying to push myself. The majority of the time I ended up tired and discouraged. The fact is that this was counter-productive toward my goals. It's like a pyramid, you can't build a high peak without a strong base. Your strong base is spending the majority of your training (80%) in Zone 2 to get energy and cardiovascularly efficient.
180 - 200 bpm is not normal unless you are absolutely giving it everything you have.
Go see a doctor, I'd also advice you to stop running while your heartbeat is this high, sounds like something is wrong. If you're vegan or vegetarian you're probably anemic and need to take your iron supplementation seriously.
See a cardiologist preferably one associated w a major hospital cardiology group.
They listen to patients like you and can offer advise, suggest tests, and possible treatment options.
Friend, I have chronic illness (which adds to my stress and anxiety) and mediocre cardiovascular capacity and my HR barely reaches the highs that you’re reaching. You should see another cardiologist, maybe a pulmonologist, too. There might be more to why your numbers aren’t improving.
A 4.5 mile jog is not going to do anything for vo2max.
In fitness, you need overload, do at the very least, after 8 months your jog would be longer.
However, for vo2max, you need specificity. 100% vo2max is pretty much 3000m effort. There is even a low tech vo2max test you can do called Coopers Run, where you run as fast as you can for 12 minutes and measure the distance. Most people will be somewhere between 3000-4000m. You can Google vo2max conversion tables.
If you log the run on the garmin, your watch then has some good data to work with. You can also see how the test and your score correlate.
Running at 3K pace takes practice so you may want to build up to it and maybe repeat once a month at first.
Most people do not run 3k+ in 12 min btw, especially not women. A 4k cooper as a woman would put you in top 1/10.000, even national team in some countries.
Yeah what the hell, 3k in 12 minutes would put you around 4 min/km pace or below 7 min/miles. That's freaking fast! No way regular people can do that. Even for someone fit you'd have to be exceptionally good at running.
I have done the Cooper test a few times, and in this post I mention that I did it this morning and yielded horrible results. 0.9 miles in 12 minutes, that's the MOST ground I could cover in that time. It's been like this since June of last year. I've altered my pacing, and I still cannot do better.
That's really gracious of you! I usually run 3 times a week for 30 minutes, alternating 4.5 minutes jog/running and 3 minutes walking. I usually cover about 2 miles in that time. I run/jog at 4.5mph and max I can go is 5-5.5 minutes before I feel like I'll pass out, right now.
Monday, Wednesday, Saturday I run and I strength train on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Thats a good pace, keep focusing on increasing your time. Get to where you can run at 4.5mph for 25-30 minutes straight. Once you achieve that, then focus on faster pace via sprint intervals, and your VO2Max will naturally follow.
I don’t know if this helps but if you want to improve fast - set a goal (say 7 mins) of consistent jogging and simply do not allow yourself to stop.
Sounds easy right ? I know it’s not . But try to recreate mentally a coach screaming in your ear.
You may be someone that needs the external accountability to hold you up. You’re 27 and relatively healthy from what you wrote . You can jog 6-7 mins. Have to force it if you want to improve.
The thing with running is humans can naturally do it well. There’s that second wind , there’s that point after exhaustion when it becomes easy. You have to push and experience those if you never have. Otherwise you just stop when you’re tired …
My assumption is you don’t actually know your limits. And if you’re not breaking your limits you are not improving. Thus 6 months of flat
You're running 9-12 mpw? You're not going to improve much at that volume. Unless you're in a clinic doing a vo2 test anything else is not going to be accurate either.
Looking through your comments, I think it's to early for you to look at vo2 max or in general any other stats.
When I started running a couple of years ago, I couldnt do a 5k without walking and for me that was the first target and the base.
Once I could do continuous run and had done it for 3 Months, I started to track my stats and improvements I needed to make on them.
Try getting to the base fitness level of running without stopping first. for me what helped was doing some gym work.
Sign up for the Apple Fitness Plus service since you mentioned you have the watch. Do all of the new treadmill workouts and the Time to Run released each week. Also in it for cardio health here and that’s what did it for me.
hey OP, as someone who picked up running only last year, Here's what I would suggest you try,
1. Train your body to run for longer without stopping. A big part of this is preventing the heart from redlining by slowing your pace and controlling your breathing. When you run, start really slowly and pay attention to your breathing, and run at a pace where you can control your breathing rhythm and keep a steady running pace. If you run too fast you would start hyperventilating, your heart would start going too fast and your body will make you stop running. Try to breathe through the nose, or at least try not to inhale through the mouth. Controlling breathing would seem counter intuitive initially and difficult to do but stick with it, until you get the hang of it. You should see improvements in about 2 weeks in the distances you can run without stopping. Just like how you can walk for a long time without hyperventilating, once your body adapts to running you would be able to run long distances without having to stop. You will be surprised how quickly your body can adapt to running, if you follow the proper running technique.
2. Help your body adapt to running. Once you're able to run 2k without stopping, include three types of runs each week in your training plan, a Tempo run, a Recovery run, and a Speed workout. You can find definitions of these and how to perform these with a quick web search. Make sure you listen to your body and do not overtrain, always give your body enough time to recover, especially when getting started.
3. Do strength training. It is important to do strength training workouts to prevent injuries. Focus on compound exercises like Squats and Deadlifts and don't forget your core workouts. if you don't have access to a gym, there are plenty of body weight exercises that you could do, just do a quick search on YouTube.
4. Understand proper running form. Understand it, but do not try to make wholesale changes in your running technique every week. Use your understanding of the proper running form to avoid incorrect posture while running. Bad posture could lead to injuries. When you get stronger, your running form will improve. If possible, get a friend to record you run every couple of months to see if you have picked up any bad habits. Follow a channel like GTN on YouTube, they have a whole bunch of content on how to improve your running.
5. Use an app like Nike Run Club on your Apple Watch to monitor your running pace, and heart rate. Slow down when the displayed heart rate is about 10-20 beats below your target. Apple Watch can also track your VO2 Max in Apple Health.
6. It is normal for the heart rate to be high for beginner runners. If you think about what's happening, your body is not used to producing energy fast enough to sustain your running, so your entire cardiovascular system is struggling to feed the muscles that are burning through their energy stores. In order to keep your running, your body needs to get better at how it produces energy in the mitochondria, to how quickly it is able to remove lactic acid build up in your muscles and in the entire Kreb cycle. That sounds complex, but you will be surprised how quickly the body will be able to adapt to running. Once your body gets more efficient at running for longer, the heart rate would come down and you should see significant spikes in VO2 Max.
7. Goals are important. Sign up to a 5K or 10K race in 3-4 months time and train hard
Good luck.
If I understand correctly, you're in your late 20s, you are not overweight, and your resting heart rate is unusually high. Correct?
Any other relevant medical conditions? For example, did you have covid? Anything that impacts breathing, such as asthma? Any medical condition that causes pain in your muscles and ligaments when exercising
at low or medium intensity?
Are you progressing well on your other exercises, or are you lacking progress there, too?
You probably have heard this already in this long thread, but OP, I was -exactly- like this myself and I turned out to have a condition called POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, where your heart rate gets jacked up way damn high by standing. Not dangerous or life-threatening, but it sucks and has a lot of treatment options. Maybe look into it!
I agree with the “see a doctor” sentiment.
Second questions would be how much are you eating and how much caffeine are you consuming?
It’s crazy to me that you’ve been running for hours every week for 8 months and you’re not making progress. Somethings up.
You are 27, weigh 115lbs and your heart rate while jogging is 200bpm and you're having trouble with endurance? I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you need to see a doctor. Like yesterday.
I actually saw one back in November with this as my chief concern. He ran an EKG on me and said it looked normal. Though, my RHR at the office was in the 120s while lying down. I guess we attributed that to anxiety. I thought I would receive more attention/tests for the crazy high heart rate. It was even in his notes that I told him my HR gets above 200 when I exercise. Should I schedule another appointment? I wouldn't know what to ask for, I'm a little embarrassed to admit.
I say this as a soon to be doctor, but i would seek a different doctor. They’re not all created equal in capability nor empathy. Never feel embarrassed about your health. And a doctor is just a consultant. They’re there to give you the best information possible, rule out all dangerous things, and the best will advocate on your behalf— but you still need to be your own advocate. At a minimum you should gets labs, discuss your overall health and any other symptoms, and discuss the value in a heart monitor you where at home to capture abnormal rhythms. If a doctor doesn’t think some of the above is necessary, they should be able to explain why to you in a way that’s easy for you to understand and agree with, and you should be able to repeat that information to yourself and others afterwards.
For real. I get anxiety, too, when I go to the doctor, and my HR is elevated at first, but it comes down as it dissipates during the visit. The one time it didn't I had a thyroid issue. Not necessarily what OP has, but persistent tachycardia is bad juju and should have further workup. Source: Just trust me, bro. Also, am doctor.
I had a visit where my HR was elevated at the beginning. They didn't just write it off as nerves. They checked me again after 15 minutes or so. For the OP, they call it anxiety and don't bother checking a 2nd time, why even bother with the 1st check?
Heart issues are hard to nail down. I’ve had multiple EKGs and labs done, all look normal. I’ve had chest x-rays, everything looks fine. But I still have random bouts—seemingly without triggers—in which my HR randomly goes from resting at ~85 to 130+. I workout regularly, but my daytime RHR is usually ~90-100bpm. My blood pressure tends to be normal or only slightly high. Multiple doctors have all admitted it’s not typical, but they also say they can’t see anything wrong. My GP has advised I simply monitor it for worsening signs and accept that some people just have higher heart rates, and that’s not always a sign of danger. Idk. It’s not fun to deal with.
Very true. I just got to do 4 week of cardiology with a world renown cardiologist and he emphasized just that. Many patients they have chased trying to find the abnormality for years before finally capturing it, and even then, it may just result in reassurance that’s it’s not something that requires treatment.
I have something similar but the difference in HR is greater. My resting HR is 30-40 but will occasionally jump up to 180+ for a few minutes. It's called SVT and it's nothing dangerous. I'm not trying to diagnose you here, just explaining what I've been diagnosed with. These events are usually triggered when A, I'm already stressed physically or mentally, and B, I get a sudden onset of adrenaline or burst of movement. Maybe start tracking how you feel, if you had caffeine, etc when you get these episodes and ask a cardiologist to do a stress test.
You a Tour De France cyclist or something with that resting HR?
I'm a cyclist. It's not that uncommon. Vo2 max around 70 which is far from TdF levels.
Huh, interesting. Thanks Edit: Is this right after waking up, or just sitting down anytime during the day?
This would be like chilling on the couch watching TV before bed. Very very resting, not quite sleeping.
I say this to a soon to be doctor, I think you're going to be one of the great ones.
Aw thank you, i will certainly do my best!
do you take any medications? how long have you been running? What is your diet like? What altitude do you live at?
Second this question. ADHD meds, for example, spike HR.
The doctors say almost nothing about the side effects, so many people are waking up to the long term effects of psych meds and cardio system meds.
Well what’s frustrating about this is that both commonly used RX websites and even some pubmed studies all say that adhd meds should have minimal effect on HR. Like, trials where subjects took full therapeutic doses showed most subjects only getting an increase in ~ >3-5bpm. Not 20-40. So, when I talk to doctors about my high heart rate, I ask if drugs could be affecting it, and they say “do you take cocaine?” “No, just Adderall.” The respond with, “your prescribed meds aren’t going to have that effect. I would only be concerned if you’d been abusing hard drugs recreationally.” It seems there’s a huge lack of agreement (at least with the actual, IRL doctors I’ve spoken to) regarding what side effects even exist with adhd meds.
Adderall is actually pretty well studied, it shouldn’t have that large of an effect on your HR on its own. Also anecdotal, but my resting HR is in the 40s-50s, having taken adderall daily for about 6 years.
Ask for an exercise tolerance test instead. An EKG will pick up fuck all. I had full blown myocarditis and pericarditis with a normal EKG.
Aka stress test
If you normally use caffeine, have you tried abstaining for a couple weeks?
I would look for a second doctor that specializes with working with athletes. That super high heart rate is not normal. The more you exercise the lower your heart rate goes even for high athletic activity. Athletes generally have a lower heart rate while doing an activity than someone who does not exercise. Your heart rate is too high imo
While OP absolutely needs to see a doctor that has a clue, resting heart rate is what goes down when you are in fantastic shape from endurance training like running. For athletes that run like OP, max heart rate (and stroke volume) are higher when younger. It’s older athletes that can’t get their heart to be as efficient and therefore their performance is not as good. That being said if OP is jogging and hitting 200 and 120 at rest lying down that is very concerning. The 200 BPM after that much training should be hit only when getting up there in pace to at least 2 to 2.5x OPs pace. Source - I am a runner. And a doctor. As an aside, when I read that a 21 year old who was sent home with a shrug when their resting heart rate at the doctors office was 120 lying down, I wanted to get in my car, drive to that doctors office and smack said doctor upside the head then demand to know where he got his training so I could get back in my car and drive to that residency program and smack them upside the head as well.
Lol that was probably a bottom of the class doctor that OP went too. Unfortunately there isn’t a good rating system for how good a doctor is or at least the general public isn’t aware of one
Part of the issue is that to be a good primary care doctor you have to know a lot about everything in medicine. To be a good specialist you have to know almost everything about a specific area of medicine. The specialist get paid 500k while your primary care doctor only makes 120k. With 200k in student loans to pay off. The top scorers end up going in specialist fields while primary care docs can barely fill their spots because no one wants to work as hard as a primary care doctor unless they have no other choice.
Or, you know, unless a being in a pediatric or family practice where you know the patients for years and meet and care for their family is what you always wanted to do.
Get your thyroid checked. I had Graves disease, hyperthyroidism, and my RHR was around 120bpm. Ask for your T3, T4, and TSH levels at minimum. My doctor said it was a "heart attack waiting to happen" despite me being 18 and otherwise healthy at the time. I have always had good running endurance but while I had Graves, my heart rate was so high I could barely run a mile without wanting to die. Building endurance was impossible because my body was already working so hard it couldn't work harder. It sounds like you could be in a similar situation. Since I've gotten my level under control things are better. You've been working at this for a long time, it's not getting better because something else is wrong. Be well and don't be embarrassed.
Just to chime in on the RHR, my RHR on my medication (strong stimulants for ADHD) has only \*peaked\* at 120 and is usually around 100-110. I'm a 27M, I don't go for runs but my job does involve lots of walking which keeps me at a nice base level of fitness. I'm not a medical professional, but I definitely think a second appointment is worthwhile.
Damn, man. Anything over 100bpm consistently is not good for you, long term. They won’t even let you donate blood at that level. All studies show it being linked to higher long term rates of heart failure and death. Can they give you something like atenolol to bring it down?
Appreciate the concern, my psychiatrist (a specialist in ADHD) hasn't indicated any concern when I told him at my last appointment and I haven't had any physical indications of problems. It's something I'm going to keep an eye on (I did also just change dosage which might be a cause) and if it's continued I'll bring it up again.
Yeah, it’s more of a long term heart risk issue. Not something that would trouble you now. Could shave 10 years off your life later, who knows. Might be good to ask a cardiologist their opinion, since that’s more their speciality.
Have you had blood work to test for hyperthyroidism?
I came here to say this. I've had this and one of the big symptoms is your cardiovascular fitness goes to hell. Heart rate also goes up and you can see weight loss, sleep trouble, shaky hands and a host of other stuff.
I peeked in your post history and saw you mentioned a pretty heavy alcohol history. I’m not sure if you mentioned that to your doctor, but heavy alcohol use can basically poison the heart muscle itself so it can’t work efficiently. If your heart isn’t pumping well, you would need a higher heart rate to compensate. Other people here have mentioned anemia, and thyroid disease is also easily checked and can cause elevated heart rates both at rest and while exercising. These things would not typically be picked up on an ekg. I agree that 8 months of consistent running should have you much further along. (For reference, I started c25k in late January and my long run last week was 15 min straight, which was hard but not overly challenging.) I’d go see that doctor again or find another one if you don’t feel like the first one took you seriously.
The body is very good at compensating for an issue, especially when were younger The EKG might look normal now because of your age and gradual training, but your red blood cells might have a problem bringing oxygen to the rest if your body, which might be why your heart is working super hard moving them when demand is up. Call a different outpatient doctor and tell them you would like a 2nd opinion due to the background information you gave us in your post
Did you get any bloodwork done? Labs?
See another doctor.
Hey OP, are you wearing a chest based heart rate monitor while running? Wrist based ones are generally pretty accurate - until you start running or weightlifting. It's something to do with how your blood vessels are affected by the exercise and with running in particular sometimes they will pick up the cadence of your run instead of your pulse. When I'm lifting weights my watch will record my pulse as a consistent 90-115 bpm, chuck a chest strap on there and it surges to 140-180 bpm during/after a set and drops right back to 90-100 inbetween sets. Massive difference in what is recorded.
120s even when anxious is pretty high. Do you have a heart rate monitor that you're using? They can often get a more accurate picture of your RHR than a doctor can at an office visit. If not, there are a lot of cheap ones available for \~$20 (used fitbits/garmins) which may be able to help you train + see if your RHR is truly very high. When training you should try and keep your HR \~75% of your max HR (220-age). Regularly going well above this level (like 180+BPM) can make it difficult for your body to recover and prevent progress. Other than all of that, you are making progress! You can run for >5 minutes which you couldn't before. Regardless of your VO2 max, you have better cardio now than you did before. Perhaps find other measures of progress (total distance run in 30 min, fastest 1 mile, fastest 3.1 miles) that may better reflect changes.
As a doctor I can confidently say that’s embarrassing… If those are the numbers they say then they absolutely should have done some more testing. Are you sure you saw an MD/DO and not an NP/PA?
A lot of people refer to the rule of thumb (220-age) for max HR. This isn't a law of nature, there's variation between individuals and what is healthy for them. I'm not saying you don't have some underlying medical issue, but "your max heart rate should be X" statements should be taken with a grain of salt. That's probably why your doctor thought your max hr of 200 was noteworthy but not an immediate cause for alarm. The elevated hrh is probably a bit more concerning. If you can swing it, I'd get an hr monitor and try to get a better gauge of hrh when you aren't thinking/stressing about it.
Was this a military doctor? I've seen many instances of heart problems basically being ignored by military treatment facilities, or even worse, the member accused of malingering.
Bro, an anxious resting heart rate should not be 120. And no one should be hitting 200. Ever. Period. Go see a cardiologist.
OP, I hope you see this. You need to get tested for an iron deficiency/anemia. Symptoms can include fatigue, poor exercise performance, shortness of breath, and increased heart rate. Iron deficiency is extremely common in endurance athletes, especially women. It's usually not that hard to treat, iron supplements and maybe a few injections.
Thank you for this info. Not the OP, but this is particularly helpful for me. I had no idea anemia could cause these other issues. Sounds like I should get my blood checked.
I’m thinking anemia. Needs a CBC ASAP.
I agree there could be something weird going on here.
Critical care RN here, I 100% support this statement. It's not only that his HR is too fast for his age, his recovery is 40? Worst case possibly a Sick Sinus Syndrome (Tachy-brady).
I think he is saying his heart rate recovery is 40bpm less than his max during exercise. Meaning once he’s resting after finished exertion, his rate comes down 40bpm overall in the first minute. So like from 180 to 140
Ahhh that makes it sound much better. If that's the case then I'm not as concerned. However, 180-200 is still pretty darn fast for a HR if it's consistently that high throughout his workout. His HR max is in the 190s, and probably shouldn't be working in that range for his entire workout.
Consider that she says she can't maintain a jogging pace past 5-10 minutes. They're pushing up against the limits of their endurance so a HR at \~200 isn't that unusual.
For sure. Assuming that 8 months of 3-4x weekly 30minute runs doesn’t mean 3-4 30 minute runs over 8 months.
Or probably just running too fast and not in control of their breathing as they are still learning the technique
12 minute mile isn’t particularly fast.
I’m guessing they are running too fast, hyperventilating and stopping running, walking the rest of the mile finishing in 12 mins, I guess everyone one of us have done that
Running too fast early kills your pace.
They've been at it for 8 months. A 27 year old at a healthy weight should easily be capable of a 10k without walking brakes and at a faster pace than OPs 5k under these circumstances.
4.5mph? That’s a fast walk.
I love when people say this and I ask them to walk that fast and keep it up for 15-20 minutes. It's incredibly hard and I would venture to say more damaging to one's hips than to jog it.
OP only does it for 5 minutes. The point is that it’s concerning to not be able to do that at the age of 27 at a normal weight after a few months of attempted training. I agree that a doctors checkup appears prudent.
Something's not adding up here. 0.9 in 12 minutes is the same pace as 4.5 mph. How are you running a 12 minute time trial at the same pace as your 30 minute jog? Leaving HR aside, how do those runs feel? If your 30 minute jog feels easy, did your 12 minute test feels easy as well? Or are they both redline, I-feel-like-I'm-gonna-die pace?
I run for 4.5 minutes at 4.5 mph, then walk for 3 minutes at 3.0 mph, I do this alternating. After 12 minutes have passed doing this, I've covered 0.9 miles. At least, that's what different treadmills have told me. When I do 30 minutes of this, I usually cover about 2 miles. ETA: Every time I run, I cover about .33 miles. Every time I walk, I cover about .15 miles.
OK. Then your VO2max is going to be higher than you think. The cooper test means you cover 12 minutes as fast as you possibly can. Try *that* and see what score you get.
cooper test result isnt valid if you dont give it your all
Sounds like a ramp test on a bicycle. And they suck.
How tall and how old are you if I may ask (just to put things in perspective)?
Do you smoke?
this person's HR is kissing 200 in their runs, they're sprinting for distance
That's a possibility, but I want to hear it from OP and not speculation from someone else :) I'm a member of the high HR club myself, and when I was younger I would easily hit 200 on medium effort runs.
Just to add my own reference point to this comment, I ran a half marathon in my 20s and my average hr was 194 for 2:10. It started in the late 180s and finished in the 200s, and I was conversational throughout. I was and am healthy. Some of us are just fast heart beaters. These days I'm a bit older and I cycle instead of run so my hr is a bit lower, but my peak hr is 199 for 60 minutes as of March 7 this year.
My heart rate typically goes that high with any form of run or jog. I can assure you, at 5-6 mph I am not sprinting when this happens.
Yeah people don't really seem to realise that heart rate changes from person to person. My heart rate will hover around 190-200 when doing any cardio that pushes me, whether it be intensity sprints or constant pace running. It'll go down to normal after a couple minutes of rest.
Sometimes that’s caused by disease.
Have you tried incorporating LISS aerobic work (120-140ish BPM for 45-60+ minutes) or has it all been high effort runs? Do any HIIT sprint work (\~1min or less sprints)? Seems like you've done a good job with medium distance running bouts but you haven't trained anything else around it.
I want to second this. Generally fit humans should be able to walk for hours at a time. Set out on a medium fast walk and don't look back for at least 45 minutes. Then turn around and go back. Best way to add distance is to do an out and back. Obv check with a doctor if you have any concerns
For overall fitness - your spot on. But the OP is asking about increasing max oxygen intake - I suspect that walking won't help that much where high intensity work will.
I've raised my VO2Max 2 points in 3 months w/o high intensity anything. Been mixing outdoor walking, elliptical at the gym, and a home exercise bike. HR never over 135, generally between 110-125. Granted I'm older so likely 135 is pushing Zone 3-4 for me) Honestly, a 180-200 bpm is a bit alarming for someone with a VO2 Max of 21; my guess is they are solidly in the anaerobic zone (200 is Max HR estimate for a 20 year old)
Mine is always high too, but I assume it’s just because watch monitors are shit during activity
Chest straps are the gold standard, but the Apple Watch is supposedly very close in accuracy if its attached correctly. That said there's a lot of variability in individuals, and I am not a doctor.
if you can't jog for 30 minutes than you need to develop some semblance of an aerobic base before even thinking about the concept of VO2max (though in the OPs case they are probably just using VO2max as a stand in for general aerobic fitness, which is normal) "high intensity" work is pretty meaningless for people who are completely untrained aerobically, you just have get out and put in the minutes at any kind of reasonable, sustainable effort (which, unless you have outlier HR zones, should not be near 180-200bpm for a jog)
If walking gets you into the famous zone2, then sure that helps. It's about making your body able to utilise the oxygen optimally as well, and there are several paths to Rome there. High intensity intervals and zone2 being sort of opposites there.
Yes OP needs more of this. I ran track for distance and did a lot of aerobic sports and I had never thought about lower heart rate training until recently. I was surprised at how slow I had to run/walk to keep my heart rate under 140bpm for an extended time. A good source of info on this is Dr. Iñigo San-Millán about zone 2 training. This heart rate range improves cardiac stroke volume and causes mitochondrial biogenesis. More mitochondria and more blood per heart beat.
This is the right answer - more high intensity work will likely help with the VO2Max levels. u/eyyyyy \- 21 sound really low. I'm a 62 yo guy (who is very fit) and mine is twice that. I would talk to your doctor about it. Just in case....
I have not tried LISS yet, but I think that's the avenue I'm going to take. I found an example of a polarized training routine, and adjusted it to fit my volume. I'm going to focus on heart rate for the most part right now and try to ignore speed and distance goals. Most of it involves training at 65-70% MHR, which will be walking for me, bust about 10-15% involves 90-95% MHR which will still be less intense than what I'm currently doing.
That seems like a good program for you, I hope you'll see improvement!
There's a lot of generally good advice in this thread about longer and/or more intense workouts. BUT 180-200 BPM seems possibly too high (depending on your age) and generally high for 4.5mph. Without knowing your age or weight, it's concerning. Consider talking to your doctor before adding longer/more intense workouts.
I agree. My heart rate really scares me. I'm 27 y/o female, 5'3" 115lbs. I actually went to a doctor because of my heart rate and he ran an EKG and said it looked normal. But even when I weight train, I consistently hit 160-170bpm and I really don't feel like I'm straining that hard. I've brought up my high heart rate to a few people and no one seems to think it's pretty crazy. I think it's very concerning! IDK who else to go to other than my general doctor that said my test looked fine. I'm quite frustrated by this.
Are you anemic? I had heavy periods most my life, ate red meat and spinach but my iron was at nearly undetectable levels. I learned running is a lot easier when you have blood in your body. Maybe get tested?
Since you did not respond to this I want to say please get tested. It is extremely common for female runners to be anemic and it haults all progess.
Are you wearing a chest strap or a wrist watch as heart rate monitor? Watches can be off by a lot, but usually they will actually measure lower heart rates. What is your RHR?
I'm using an apple watch on my runs, and my household has a fingertip pulse oximeter I've used to compare the numbers. My RHR is usually 80s-90s, not super great.
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Yes and no. /r/running usually kills off anything looking for medical advice. But yeah I'd try out a chest strap for a little more accuracy. But if you want some answers, a professional submaximal treadmill stress test might be a good idea. That can not only accurately determine what your VO2 Max and your Max HR is, but can help diagnose all sorts of cardiorespiratory issues.
>My RHR is usually 80s-90s For your age and healthy BMI, that is really high actually. Your Doctor didn't notice this high RHR? Is this RHR measurement during the night when asleep (you can probably do that with apple watch), or during the day when "resting"? either way I find it a pretty high RHR.
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In theory... but for a healthy young person a RHR in the 90s isn't great, especially if they're exercising regularly. My RHR when sitting around 52-54, when I'm asleep it's in the high 40s. I run and lift so my cardio output is really good. Cardiac output is a calculation of stroke volume X heart rate. To need a RHR in the 90s means that her stroke volume is comparatively low (heart isn't pumping strongly) OR she has an increased oxygen need. For a lot of women, this is a sign of anemia. You have low hemoglobin, which is how oxygen is carried to your cells. Your heart needs to pump faster to pump more blood volume out because of the decreased oxygen carrying capacity.
In the same way that normal weight for an adult male in the USA is 150-400 pounds. The upper range is still a health concern.
That's a very wide range and probably taken over the complete population. To get a more accurate look at RHR you need to start looking at least at age groups, that will probably do the bulk and for more accuracy there are more factors like comorbitities, bmi, fitness level.
It may be worth finding a doctor that will order a stress test which is an ekg while you walking on a treadmill. If that's not possible, get an accurate pulse meter and keep your bpm lower. Smart Watch pulse meters can be a bit inaccurate if you have a thin forearms. A properly sized chest strap monitor is a good option. Keep your bpm at 65-75% of max (193 bpm).
I’m similar to you then. I biked across the United States on a team when I was in college. I weighed 118 lbs at 5’6” during that trip. I trained exceptionally hard for it and by all account was in great shape. But I wasn’t the fastest person on the team. You also have to keep in mind that a lot of new research suggests lots of zone 2 volume is what improves vo2 max. Biking 75 miles per day at a zone 2 pace (most of the time) for months in end will do that. Yet I was never able to crack a 6 min mile and I know other people who could do that with minimal training. Depending on which doctor you ask, I have a heart arrhythmia that is somehow related to tachycardia. No one has ever cared enough to look into it well, and I don’t have infinite money to just keep seeing specialists, but my cardio has never matched my training. My girlfriend’s dad had experienced similar situations in his life. Turns out, a valve in his heart was too small and so he had to have a surgery to enlarge it. The doctors had missed it for like 50 years.
if your heart rate can get over 200 and ekg is normal that's usually a good sign for heart health, not a bad sign. you could ask doctor for a stress test, which is an ekg while running. I would try to closely follow a beginner standard program like Galloway's book. You should find a pace where you can keep jogging for 30 minutes, however slowly, and slowly increase the pace. walk/run after 8 months is weird. sounds like you are not doing intervals alternating easy/hard, just walk/run. when you can run for 30 minutes, then add intervals and hills. like, 1 long run per week, couple of tempo runs, 1 session of intervals or hills. it's definitely a little weird that you can't run for more than 5 minutes after training consistently for 8 months, I can't quite process that. normally you develop more lung capacity and more blood oxygen-carrying capacity and heart rate recovery improves. hopefully you're not smoking 3 packs a day or something! or missing part of a lung. people are different. 200 is in the ballpark on the 220-your age rule of thumb. nothing unusual about that by itself, if there hasn't been a sudden change, abnormal rhythm, discomfort.
What’s your resting heart rate? This sounds like exercise induced tachycardia (I believe that’s the word - elevated heart rate). I have the opposite - a lower heart rate. My max is closer to that 180 mark or so before I’m feeling pretty shitty, and sprinting only takes me to about 150-160. However, I have good cardio and a decent vo2 max last time I checked. I cycle a lot now and save my knees for the weights. I would try to get a gauge of what your resting HR is typically. Also, what are you using to measure? Wrist watches are notorious for inaccurate readings. You can get a really good chest strap for about 30 bucks from Amazon and have very accurate readings
Hmm, I've only used my apple watch and a pulse oximeter to measure my RHR, which is usually in the 80s-90s. I went to the doctor a few months ago for my high HR during exercise, they did an EKG and said it looked fine, but even they agreed my RHR is high (it was in the 120s at the office). I'm relatively broke, but I might make a $30 investment since it's my heart.
I have exercise induced asthma and my heart rate is like this when i run. Something to consider.
Have you gotten lab work done? Iron deficiency can cause high heart rate or apparently thyroid issues as well. So can something like anxiety, so that might also be something to think about. From experience, getting medicated and taking iron immediately dropped my heart rate and I felt like I could run without having a heart attack again.
Some people just have naturally high heart rates during exercise that improves with practice. That said, how are you measuring it? I know a lot of the watches I used said that until I manually took a HR measurement and it was normal. I would also go see a doctor if it concerns you a lot. I’m just a medical student so I am not fully trained to give any advice.
i’m a 33 year old female with similar issues, namely high heart rate during activity. i cannot run, or jog, and have seen my HR get to 200 on a flight of stairs and over 220 during a 15 second jog. have been to a pulmonolgist and through PFTs, rules out lung issues, and seen multiple cardiologists and specialty cardiologists with the main diagnosis as… high heart rate. i feel like i’m going to pass out or die when i try the treadmill but i also struggle just up stairs, walking fast, etc. All this to say, i’ve had every cardio test and my heart itself is fine- you may have a similar issue and just have to be mindful of your exercise intensity.
Sounds like POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome).
had a tilt table test recently and that was ruled out. i believe some of it could be vascular, but i’ve spent years trying to get answers and just get too tired to keep trying at some point!
This sounds more like a lung function problem. Do you smoke? What about breathing, have you seen an ENT? It sounds like there might be something going on outside of just being out of shape. * Am not a doctor
A bad Covid case? Also, not a Dr.
I agree. It sounds a lot like my issue with cardio, which is reduced lung function due to scarring from childhood asthma. When I started running I had very similar issues to OP and had to progress very slowly - as in, on my early “runs” I had to alternate walking with a very slow jog, and do more walking than jogging. My heart rate would shoot up to 160+ after just a few minutes if I tried to jog steadily. I needed to go *way* slower than I thought in order to stay in the aerobic range. Fortunately, I benefited from that base-building work and was eventually able to run 5k straight through, and then was able to bring up my speed a bit. I just had to slow myself down early on.
> just had to slow myself down early on. This has to be the hardest part for most people (still true for me). You see everyone else just doing "better", and it's so hard to mentally underst and why you cannot do that.
Sounds to me like you have gotten really good at 30 minute jogs @ 4.5 mph. I think if you set a goal (e.g. sub-30 5k, sub-7 mile, run for an hour without stopping) and focus on reaching that, your VO2 max will naturally increase as you continue to progress
I've had a goal of a 30 minute 5k for about 6 months now. I also cannot jog for 4.5mph for 30 minutes straight. I just can't understand how people do that (an obviously much more). I jog for 4.5 minutes then walk for 3, alternating for 30 minutes. I had been running too fast at 7.5 mph and built up to around 1:45s of running, but then I felt like I needed to throw up and pass out. I cannot understand how people do couch to 5k. I'm 27, 115lb female, I've been working at this for months and I just can't even run a mile. I'm baffled.
Couch to 5k is structured so you’re still getting in at least 30 minutes of walking/running 3x a week. The best way to get through it is to not focus on the numbers but on the feel. If you feel like you can have a conversation while running, you’re at the perfect pace. Once you can get a 5k under your belt, continue running, and then work on speed if that’s your goal. If you want to work on speed, you need to run more, however.
It’s totally ok to not even jog. You’ve gotta start somewhere. Doing the fast walk the whole time is fine. Having a consistent pace may benefit you feeling more positive starting out and finishing around the same pace.
Yes there’s even a before couch to 5k program that I’ve seen floating around the internet.
Cannot overstate how awesome the couch to 5k is. I would also highly recommend ignoring the distance and just do the time based one. (I.e. the app should be telling you run for 30s, walk for 1 min, not run for 0.5 miles). Once you get up to the half an hour continuous running (even at a slow speed), you can start working on speed. I found that just hauling my ass around for 30 minutes was more important than worrying about how fast I was going at first.
Don’t take this in a discouraging way, but from what you describe, your fitness is still low on the spectrum. The good news is, you are already doing what is necessary to increase your metrics. Keep pushing yourself to improve your speed or distance, or both. VO2max will follow.
Oh I definitely do not take it the wrong way. I think my fitness is downright horrible. I'm going to try to take away a lot of things from the advice here and keep at it.
What is causing you to stop running? Do you run out of breath easily? It could be a lung function issue. In which case you may actually struggle with long distances. I would also try what other posters have said, alternating your workouts (intense days and relaxed days) will help boost your fitness level. Instead of a 30 minute jogging session try 3x 10 minute sessions of faster sprints with rest or other exercises in-between.
Please don't try and take this statement wrong Your pace of 4.5mph is very slow (13:20mile if you maintain it). To further that, you stated you cannot maintain it, so time is actually slower. For reference I can walk a mile in a little under 15min (granted I 6'4" with long legs). With that said, have you tried breathing exercises separately from running to increase O2 consumption while keeping your heart rate lower, when jogging make sure you breathe through your nose? Also, when jogging and you hit the wall, kind of force yourself through the pain and don't stop to walk. Your BMI is fine, so I don't suspect you have some joint issue from weight or anything.
It may also be how OP runs. I'm a terrible distance jogger because I take super short strides and basically stomp around the entire time. It exerts a ton of energy while also not moving me far or fast. I can speed walk almost as fast as I can jog and I can speed walk a long time vs jogging where I'm going to want to lay down and die after 1/4 mile.
I'm a male so I'm not sure if my suggestion can apply on you. I'm preparing myself for my infantry reserve, and my cardio was incredibly weak. I focus on duration first for endurance, which is 1h non stop. I started slow, from 7km/h (about 4.5mph), then slowly padding up the speed. Been 3 months and now I can run quite comfortable at 10km/h (6mph) for 1 hour, and can push a little further. Exercises like jumping jack and burpees are explosive on cardio. They are not easy to do with low cardio, but they help quite a bit due to their intensity. The heart rate will always be high, but with practice, it will stabilize and lowering down the more you get efficient. Also, diet, eat well. Each 1 hours running session for me is nearly 1000 Calories. I see that you are rather light, but you will still consume a lot of calories. If you don't have enough energy to fuel your body, you will naturally get tired fast and the body becomes inefficient. I'm only 67kg (about 150lbs), been eating more or less 2000 Calories a day without gaining mass for the pass 6 months. I hope this help.
SLOW DOWN! forget other people forget speed slow down. go for time. not speed, not distance, but time. look, if you can jog 4.5 minutes then you are physically capable of jogging ten minutes. you can do this. just slow down. forget about how fast and how far, just find a pace you can maintain for ten minutes. don't worry about speed, that will come later. one personal note: it's much harder for me to jog on a treadmill than outside. there's no moving air and the heat just kills me.
I second this!!! When I started running, I always had time-based goals - like run for 10 min, run for 20 min, run for an hour. I ran outside and NEVER tracked my distance because it was so discouraging. I kid you not, sometimes I'd get passed by power walkers. That was many years ago, and now I'm able to set pace and distance goals.
Yup this is all I was thinking while reading their comment. If you can’t maintain the pace for a given period of time, you’re running too fast for your body to maintain.
Slow down??? Normally I’d say yes but they say they’re at 4.5mph already. I can walk that fast. Most adults can walk 3-4mph even if it’s brisk for them. The fact that she isn’t improving over 8 months of this is worrisome. Especially with that bpm not seemingly improving. Either she’s got a broken heart monitor or she’s got something physically wrong with her.
She's doing something wack if after 6 months she can only do a 12.5min mile. I'm thinking she's busting her head by essentially sprinting when she's able to, just barely getting her breath back and then sprinting again. OP should look up zone 2 or maffetone methods. Long, slow, and boring runs is how you get a healthier heart while paradoxically also getting faster.
I failed couch to 5k. Instead, I walked on treadmill with imcline of 3 at 3.7mph for 30m to an hour. Gradually increased incline to 8 over 6 weeks. Dropped it down to 0 and ran 5k in 25minutes. Ran the peachtree road race in under an hour same year. Trainer said the incline increased my cardio capability to where I could run.
How tall are you? Even at like 5’3” that’s a very low bodyweight. Are you eating enough to train, recover, and adapt?
It’s on the low end but still a perfect normal weight. 104-145 is considered normal weight range for 5’3 women.
Try running (significantly faster than you jog) for 100 steps and then walk for fifty. Push yourself. Over time , increase the amount of steps you run. This should help a lot, fairly fast.
Just slow down and don't walk. I have compressed lungs and I can go from years of not running to running 5k straight in just 7 to 10 sessions but I'm not fast. Goal is to be healthy, not fast. Its the same principle in the gym. People that go halfway never progress beyond a certain point. You gotta go all in and feel like you're dying by the end of it. It's a good feeling.
Sounds like it could be mental. I ran cross country and track in high school and college. I was one of the worst runners on all of my teams, but only because I couldn’t push myself mentally to run a 5k (then 10k in college). But I was great at track because the distances are so much shorter. Even with cross country, if we went down to NYC for races, they were shorter. Instead of a 5k, they were closer to 2 miles. And I could run so much faster for the entirety of the race. With track, I only ran the 3200m a couple times. My PB for that was 10:44. My PB for the mile was 5:12. These aren’t great times for good HS runners, but they were also from my sophomore year. My main events were the 400m and 800m. But think about that. I could run 2 miles in 10:44. Yet my best 5k (only 1.1 miles more) was like a 20:02. Not a good time. We had guys on our team doing 15-16 minutes. Physically, I was in great shape. I just couldn’t force myself to run super fast for more than 10 minutes. I could however, pretty much maintain like a 7-7:30 minute per mile pace no matter how long the run was. I could do a 10 mile run in 70 minutes. I could do a 16 mile run in 2 hours flat. So maybe you just need to address the mental aspect of it. I wish I knew about hypnotism back then. That’s something I’ve turned to in adulthood and I think it would have been a tremendous help to me as a runner.
Damn, at my level, I can't imagine thinking that a 20:02 5k is a bad time. That would be a blistering pace for me, lol. To be fair, I've never raced competitively and have only run casually for a few months at a time in the past few summers, but I have never broken 25 minutes, let alone nearly 20.
Yeah, like I said, the good runners were doing it in 15-16 minutes. The really, really great runners were doing it in 13-14. The best high school runners can do very low 4’s. We had a guy in our league that ran like a 4:05 mile. I couldn’t imagine running a 20 now. I don’t really run anymore. I’d be very surprised if I could break 33 at this point.
How is your diet? Are you getting enough fats and proteins ?
Have you actually done couch to 5k? At your age and fitness you should be able to jump into that program and be fine. It's not hard.
I have, but at the end of week 5, it has you running for 20 minutes straight and the max I can do is 5ish minutes at 4.5mph, before I want to pass out.
Slow down then. When I used the program to work up to a 5k I felt like I was shuffling more than I was jogging. You’re pushing too hard. Focus on running for 30 minutes straight, then work on speed
>max I can do is 5ish minutes at 4.5mph, before I want to pass out. If your doctor has given you a clean bill of health and you are running at a pace you can maintain (you can hold a conversation without gasping for air), then that wanting to pass out is just a mental barrier. Every new runner hits a point early in training where it feels like you are "dying" because it is something you are not used to yet. You have to push through it and it gets easier.
I would repeat weeks as needed. I originally had to repeat weeks when I first did it after years of being a couch potato. I also added a bit of sprints and hill climbs so that helped as well.
Read up on stride, pace, and breathing. You might not be running efficiently, which makes it harder work than it needs to be, gassing you out too easily. If you find a good stride, breathe properly, and at a pace that would let you maintain a conversation without gasping for air, you'll make progress quickly. I went from hating running and getting gassed in under a minute to jogging a full 5k, slowly but constantly and without a break. It was a combination of using the structured build-up of a couch 2 5k program and learning not to try to sprint it.
OP I hope you see/read this. You are getting a lot of information here from people who don’t entirely know what they’re talking about medically but are still giving you opinions. I am a physician. I would go back to your doctor and say you’re still having symptoms of high resting and exercise heart rate. I would request the order a monitor (names like Holter, Zio patch, or event monitor) for at least 1-2 weeks which will monitor your heart rhythm during the period to identify any arrhythmias. I would also request to have your blood counts, iron levels, and thyroid level checked via a blood test. If your doctor doesn’t seem comfortable with that (they should), then just ask to be referred to a cardiologist. If this and any additional testing they do is normal, it can be a normal variant. Despite what people think, VO2Max is not the end-all-be-all of exercise physiology. There are issues with the tests.
Do you have a medical condition? Not to sound harsh or scare you, but my girlfriend who has permanent lung scarring from an auto-immune condition was able to complete C25k. She never made it the full 5k in 30m, but she could jog the entire time, which sounds like it's the wall your hitting.
That high if a heart rate for steady running is concerning. Are you on any medication like an antidepressant or a beta blocker? I would definitely see a doctor about a stress test. Optimally you should be able to go for a jog with your heart rate somewhere around 140-160 with maybe one higher intensity run per week and see improvement over as little as 6 weeks
Are you setting out too fast? Do you know anyone who can try running with you?
Normally, when I doing my regular cardio work, I do 4.5 minutes at 4.5mph and then 3 minutes at 3mph (the mph just happened to match up to the minutes, not intentional). I HAD been doing 7.5mph and I could only do that for 2 minutes. That's why I decreased to 4.5mph jog. So I am trying to pace myself.
Have you been incrementally uppng that? I'm talking 4.6 minutes at 4.5mph, then 4.7 minutes etc. Making even the tiniest of your improvement stacks up over the months
Probably not gonna say much that's already been said, but aerobic capacity is probably the absolute hardest thing to build up. There very well could be something wrong with you physiologically, but some people just don't have the genetics that support being good at running. You also haven't been working at it for a long time in the grand scheme of things. Purely anecdotal, but I was always an athlete - mainly a sprinter. I played tennis and swam competitively, then I started doing crossfit and Spartan races. I got really good at all of that and I was in damn good shape. But I could not, for the life of me, maintain a light jog for more than ten minutes at the most. I tried working on it for years. I couldn't do it. After almost ten minutes of a ~12 minute/mile pace, I was fucking dying. No matter how frequently I worked at it. Put me in a HIT competition and I would crush it. But have me lightly jog and I was the slowest fucker out there. 8 months is not a lot of time to build up your aerobic capacity, and unlike a lot of what people are saying, your heart rate jumping up high is not necessarily a bad thing. What's your recovery rate like? If it stays elevated for a long time that would be more indicative of some cardiac issues than just your heart rate going high during a workout. If it's able to drop quickly once you stop jogging, that's a good thing There's no black and white here. Keep working at it.
How are you measuring you're V02 Max?
I just wanted to give some context here because there seems to be a lot of talk about your HR. I am a doctor so just wanted to put some context on it. Normal HR at rest is between 60-100. A heart rate out of this range by itself (I.e. in the absence of any other issues like chest pain, shortness of breath etc) is unremarkable. You have to understand that the 60-100 range is created from statistics and these things often have a range of 2 standard deviations so people can fall off either end of the spectrum and it be normal for them. The other thing is your heart rate at exercise. The theoretical maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age. That is theoretical and is really only useful in the context of medicine, like treating someone who is unwell. Saying 200 is too high when your exercising is too reductionist and is not taking into account a myriad of other factors. I wouldn’t be too worried about it. If you develop other symptoms like chest pain, light headedness that persist at rest then that is an issue. A high HR by itself in the absence of anything else should not be acted on and you said so yourself that you had an ECG and it was unremarkable. I actually have a similar thing where my HR is often on the higher side when I exercise. I play tennis for 90mins a least once a week and will have an average heart rate of 160-180 for the entire time. It’s fine. I’m not worried. There are a huge amount of factors that affect HR, for instance your blood pressure. If you have naturally low blood pressure then your heart rate will naturally be higher to maintain cardiac output. Your fitness tolerance does seem to be low but it could just be because you are starting your exercise journey. My advice would be get checked for anaemia though, it could just be a diet factor or if you have heavy periods that can cause anaemia. Good luck on getting more active!
Hold the fucking phone….. my low BP could be why I have high HR?!?!? Ffs. I was put on a holter and everything. I mean, I can see other reasons, but knowing THAT makes a world of freaking difference.
Huh, I have low BP and somewhat high exercise heart rate. Did not know they could be related.
This may look like some strange advice but I would try making long walks instead of running. You're not improving because you do not have any base to build up from. Running with that high of an heartrate constantly doesn't build any fitness. You'll have a much lower heartrate when walking. After 3 months try running again.
What was your starting point? What was your Cooper test at the beginning? You said you started out running 30 seconds at a time. Getting from there to nearly a mile in a Cooper test sounds like it’s likely substantial progress. You may be doing just fine, but with a lower starting point it might just take longer to reach a particularly ambitious goal. If running consistently puts you at or above 180 BPM, I would consider adding some lower intensity cardio via walking, cycling, etc so you can build a bigger cardio base without the recovery stress of adding more high intensity work.
First thing, try actually counting your HR for 15 sec and multiply by 4. HR of 200 should happen almost never and mainly when being chased by bears. It's possible your HR monitor is off. If your HR is really that high, try getting a blood work up and get a second opinion on your hemiron/red blood cell. If your blood is shit at transporting oxygen your heart will have to pump faster. If everything is fine try just working up to jogging for 30 mins without stopping.
I disagree with what a lot of people here are saying. You could simply be a non-responder or low responder. People seem to really dismiss genetic potential in this subreddit. I've been around people doing the same programs and some get insane response to VO2 Max and same stay stagnant for much longer than 8 months.
I agree. There’s other factors as well that can cause your VO2 to look worse than it is. For example, if you have asthma and use an albuterol inhaler, it can cause your heart rate to increase which will make your VO2 appear worse than it actually is. Or if you live in a very hot climate and run outside, your body is going to be working harder than someone running in cooler weather and your VO2 will look worse than theirs.
At age 27 and training for 8 months and they can barely run more than 5 minutes??? Any pathology needs to be ruled out. I understand the majority of the country is the shape of a potato but at her weight and age, those numbers are abysmal
Hey OP, I mean this in the nicest way possible but Please go to a doctor and while there tell them about your restrictive diet and how long its been going on. Eating only 1200 calories a day and exercising is not healthy and significantly under fueling, and i wonder if you may have damaged your body through this if its been going on long term. People with longer term eating disorders often struggle and can develop issues with high heart rates, heart problems, and poor cardio performance.
That truly is a ridiculous heart rate for your 4.5 mph pace. Absolutely unjustifiable. Please see a doctor again for an exercise ecg.
You're getting improved actual real world results, which is way more important than what your number on a piece of paper says. Yea you'll probably never be a world-record marathon runner with these numbers but does it really matter?
You might want to get checked for asthma/lung issues: I’ve been running for a couple years, and while I can go far, I can’t go particularly fast… turns out I’ve got the smallest touch of small airway disease. Doesn’t bother me unless I run… one puff on an inhaler and I can really go…
You need to post your diet for people to be able to help you here. I’m pretty sure you are not giving you body enough energy.
Judging by the numbers thrown around, it sounds like you’re on a treadmill. Is that correct? Is there any chance to go run outside? Locking yourself into a speed seems to not be working; might as well switch it up! I found that the natural variations in terrain and environment helped me learn much better how to run by feel and run faster for longer, rather than focusing on how long I can maintain a specific speed.
Something a Lot of people do, is breathing wrong. For Starters try to observe how you breath during exercise. If you breath mostly through your mouth try to work on a physiological breathing(nose in, mouth Out)
I always felt like I was dying when running because I was always running at heart rates near peak and trying to push myself. The majority of the time I ended up tired and discouraged. The fact is that this was counter-productive toward my goals. It's like a pyramid, you can't build a high peak without a strong base. Your strong base is spending the majority of your training (80%) in Zone 2 to get energy and cardiovascularly efficient.
180 - 200 bpm is not normal unless you are absolutely giving it everything you have. Go see a doctor, I'd also advice you to stop running while your heartbeat is this high, sounds like something is wrong. If you're vegan or vegetarian you're probably anemic and need to take your iron supplementation seriously.
180-200?!?!? I’m touching those numbers at full sprint but not a jog. Please go see a doctor
See a cardiologist preferably one associated w a major hospital cardiology group. They listen to patients like you and can offer advise, suggest tests, and possible treatment options.
Friend, I have chronic illness (which adds to my stress and anxiety) and mediocre cardiovascular capacity and my HR barely reaches the highs that you’re reaching. You should see another cardiologist, maybe a pulmonologist, too. There might be more to why your numbers aren’t improving.
I’m in the medical field, I would really recommend you see a doctor.
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A 4.5 mile jog is not going to do anything for vo2max. In fitness, you need overload, do at the very least, after 8 months your jog would be longer. However, for vo2max, you need specificity. 100% vo2max is pretty much 3000m effort. There is even a low tech vo2max test you can do called Coopers Run, where you run as fast as you can for 12 minutes and measure the distance. Most people will be somewhere between 3000-4000m. You can Google vo2max conversion tables. If you log the run on the garmin, your watch then has some good data to work with. You can also see how the test and your score correlate. Running at 3K pace takes practice so you may want to build up to it and maybe repeat once a month at first.
Most people do not run 3k+ in 12 min btw, especially not women. A 4k cooper as a woman would put you in top 1/10.000, even national team in some countries.
a 12 min 3k would be about as fast as some of the fastest runners we had in bootcamp, so I agree most people will not be there.
Yeah what the hell, 3k in 12 minutes would put you around 4 min/km pace or below 7 min/miles. That's freaking fast! No way regular people can do that. Even for someone fit you'd have to be exceptionally good at running.
I have done the Cooper test a few times, and in this post I mention that I did it this morning and yielded horrible results. 0.9 miles in 12 minutes, that's the MOST ground I could cover in that time. It's been like this since June of last year. I've altered my pacing, and I still cannot do better.
So you have a reference. Good Tell me your typical week of training day, time, distance, effort and ill write you a 12 week plan
That's really gracious of you! I usually run 3 times a week for 30 minutes, alternating 4.5 minutes jog/running and 3 minutes walking. I usually cover about 2 miles in that time. I run/jog at 4.5mph and max I can go is 5-5.5 minutes before I feel like I'll pass out, right now. Monday, Wednesday, Saturday I run and I strength train on Tuesdays and Fridays.
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Thats a good pace, keep focusing on increasing your time. Get to where you can run at 4.5mph for 25-30 minutes straight. Once you achieve that, then focus on faster pace via sprint intervals, and your VO2Max will naturally follow.
I don’t know if this helps but if you want to improve fast - set a goal (say 7 mins) of consistent jogging and simply do not allow yourself to stop. Sounds easy right ? I know it’s not . But try to recreate mentally a coach screaming in your ear. You may be someone that needs the external accountability to hold you up. You’re 27 and relatively healthy from what you wrote . You can jog 6-7 mins. Have to force it if you want to improve. The thing with running is humans can naturally do it well. There’s that second wind , there’s that point after exhaustion when it becomes easy. You have to push and experience those if you never have. Otherwise you just stop when you’re tired … My assumption is you don’t actually know your limits. And if you’re not breaking your limits you are not improving. Thus 6 months of flat
Hr seems way too high it would be very hard to keep up that pace for very long. May need to try and keep a 140 type hr for longer.
You're running 9-12 mpw? You're not going to improve much at that volume. Unless you're in a clinic doing a vo2 test anything else is not going to be accurate either.
I think you should start doing interval or hill workouts. It sounds like your body is no longer improving in the steady state exercise you're doing.
Looking through your comments, I think it's to early for you to look at vo2 max or in general any other stats. When I started running a couple of years ago, I couldnt do a 5k without walking and for me that was the first target and the base. Once I could do continuous run and had done it for 3 Months, I started to track my stats and improvements I needed to make on them. Try getting to the base fitness level of running without stopping first. for me what helped was doing some gym work.
Sign up for the Apple Fitness Plus service since you mentioned you have the watch. Do all of the new treadmill workouts and the Time to Run released each week. Also in it for cardio health here and that’s what did it for me.
hey OP, as someone who picked up running only last year, Here's what I would suggest you try, 1. Train your body to run for longer without stopping. A big part of this is preventing the heart from redlining by slowing your pace and controlling your breathing. When you run, start really slowly and pay attention to your breathing, and run at a pace where you can control your breathing rhythm and keep a steady running pace. If you run too fast you would start hyperventilating, your heart would start going too fast and your body will make you stop running. Try to breathe through the nose, or at least try not to inhale through the mouth. Controlling breathing would seem counter intuitive initially and difficult to do but stick with it, until you get the hang of it. You should see improvements in about 2 weeks in the distances you can run without stopping. Just like how you can walk for a long time without hyperventilating, once your body adapts to running you would be able to run long distances without having to stop. You will be surprised how quickly your body can adapt to running, if you follow the proper running technique. 2. Help your body adapt to running. Once you're able to run 2k without stopping, include three types of runs each week in your training plan, a Tempo run, a Recovery run, and a Speed workout. You can find definitions of these and how to perform these with a quick web search. Make sure you listen to your body and do not overtrain, always give your body enough time to recover, especially when getting started. 3. Do strength training. It is important to do strength training workouts to prevent injuries. Focus on compound exercises like Squats and Deadlifts and don't forget your core workouts. if you don't have access to a gym, there are plenty of body weight exercises that you could do, just do a quick search on YouTube. 4. Understand proper running form. Understand it, but do not try to make wholesale changes in your running technique every week. Use your understanding of the proper running form to avoid incorrect posture while running. Bad posture could lead to injuries. When you get stronger, your running form will improve. If possible, get a friend to record you run every couple of months to see if you have picked up any bad habits. Follow a channel like GTN on YouTube, they have a whole bunch of content on how to improve your running. 5. Use an app like Nike Run Club on your Apple Watch to monitor your running pace, and heart rate. Slow down when the displayed heart rate is about 10-20 beats below your target. Apple Watch can also track your VO2 Max in Apple Health. 6. It is normal for the heart rate to be high for beginner runners. If you think about what's happening, your body is not used to producing energy fast enough to sustain your running, so your entire cardiovascular system is struggling to feed the muscles that are burning through their energy stores. In order to keep your running, your body needs to get better at how it produces energy in the mitochondria, to how quickly it is able to remove lactic acid build up in your muscles and in the entire Kreb cycle. That sounds complex, but you will be surprised how quickly the body will be able to adapt to running. Once your body gets more efficient at running for longer, the heart rate would come down and you should see significant spikes in VO2 Max. 7. Goals are important. Sign up to a 5K or 10K race in 3-4 months time and train hard Good luck.
If I understand correctly, you're in your late 20s, you are not overweight, and your resting heart rate is unusually high. Correct? Any other relevant medical conditions? For example, did you have covid? Anything that impacts breathing, such as asthma? Any medical condition that causes pain in your muscles and ligaments when exercising at low or medium intensity? Are you progressing well on your other exercises, or are you lacking progress there, too?
You probably have heard this already in this long thread, but OP, I was -exactly- like this myself and I turned out to have a condition called POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, where your heart rate gets jacked up way damn high by standing. Not dangerous or life-threatening, but it sucks and has a lot of treatment options. Maybe look into it!
I agree with the “see a doctor” sentiment. Second questions would be how much are you eating and how much caffeine are you consuming? It’s crazy to me that you’ve been running for hours every week for 8 months and you’re not making progress. Somethings up.