[dejongbiz]

I’ll be 52 this month and have been following TFtNA for years. Recently, I’m finding that my heart rate is spiking into Zones 3 and 4 at the outset of my Z1/Z2 runs. I’m not running materially faster at the start than I am at the end, and I’m not even heavy nose breathing at the outset. HR drops quickly if I slow to a walk but then spikes up again the moment I start striding it out. After about five minutes, it settles into Z1/Z2. This is quite new for me– I even thought it was my TICKR malfunctioning, but the reflection of the downward tick when I slow seems to indicate it’s working fine. Any thoughts on what’s going on? Do I just power through that first five minutes at the elevated rate? Do I go slow-normal/slow-normal? Do I just walk for the first five? Appreciate any guidance here. Not sure it matters: my max HR has been in the 190s for years but, just recently, I noticed heavy nose breathing at the top of my Z1. I retested max HR to find it had dropped into the 170s and recently readjusted all of my zones accordingly.

Topic

[Shashi]

Shashi on June 15, 2021 at 9:47 am #54877

Just walk and take it slow during the warm-up. Also, it might take more than five minutes for you to warm up.

Check out this forum discussion –

Ideal warm up pace/HR zone

[dejongbiz]

dejongbiz on June 15, 2021 at 11:55 am #54880

Thank you. Very helpful.

[Philskies]

Philskies on June 16, 2021 at 12:08 am #54901

This happened to me with my wrist based HRM. I have a Garmin Vivoactive 3 and it was horribly inaccurate, especially the onset of exercise. But after I got a chest monitor, there were no more spikes or cadence lock issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on July 1, 2021 at 10:28 am #55354

@dejongbiz: As Philskies said, if you’re using a wrist monitor, HR readings are pretty useless.

[m-ruta]

m-ruta on July 7, 2021 at 12:10 pm #55538

This happened to me all the time with a Suunto chest HR strap. Walking and taking off my shirt both solved the problem, as did working up a bit of a sweat so I assume it was caused by static electricity from the fabric. I now use a Polar and it doesn’t happen any more.