How hard should you exercise

I have a cross trainer and I've been using it daily for a while now, and although I can see/feel the benefits my heart rate is still quite high when I'm using it.

They say you should do cardio exercise at a rate where you can hold a conversation but can't sing, which is what I'm doing, but my heart rate is over 190. My mother says if your heart rate is over 140 you aren't burning calories, only adrenaline (although I'm not sure where she got this information, she has clearly never done any exercise in her life!) but if I were to get mine that low I'd hardly be doing anything and I'd be there for hours trying to reach my set amount of calories.

Anyone know what I should be doing? At the moment I'm just carrying on thinking my heart rate will reduce as I get fitter.

Reply 1

Mad_Monkey59

lmao... burning adrenaline omfg hahahaa

my mums a bit like that too, you gotta luv 'em... people are going to get tired of me posting this link, but check out the cardio section, should tell what you need to know.

http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/

Reply 2

SammyD

I'm 18. I know about the 220 minus your age rule so I thought I should be ok exercising at this rate. It can't be doing me too much harm, I've been doing it for weeks and I've not had a heart attack yet!
And I'm not entirely sure what she means by burning adrenaline, I reckon she read something to do with the body releasing adrenaline and she has interpreted it wrong.

Thanks for the link, I was looking for a fitness forum to post this question on, I'll have a look there.

Reply 3

kookabura

lessthanthree

I don't understand how you "burn adrenaline" - I was under the impression that all exercised burned fuel of some sort, be it carbs, fats or whatever.

Thats what I thought, Adrenaline is a hormone which is secerted, (along with other hormones) from the Adrenal Medulla in the brain. It is not 'burnt up' it is released and then illicts a set of responses (fight or flight.) Although one of the responses is too raise the heart rate, so your mum might have heard that and got it abit confused. :smile:

Reply 4

john !!

Depends what you want really. It it's burning fat then you might want to give HIIT a try (high intensity interval training, eg. 10 second sprint, 50 second slow jog, and repeat).

You will still be burning calories above a heart rate of 140, any higher and it will be at a faster rate.

On a side note, how much did the cross triner cost? :redface:

Reply 5

Inverurie Jones

Workout until something breaks and then you'll know to exercise slightly less hard than that... :wink:

Reply 6

katiesado

190 is too high, you should be shooting for around 160-170 for a good cardio workout

if you work out too hard, in the long run it'll be harder for you to lose weight

Reply 7

katiesado

also don't go by calorie counters on any exercise machine, they're usually inaccurate anyway. a good way to estimate what you're burning is around 100 calories for every mile you go, whether or not you do this fast or slowly it's the same. If you run the mile you'll burn them in less time. You should work out for 45 minutes and at most 4x per week. If you're just getting started exercising you shouldn't push yourself too hard you can do more damage than good.