Hello. First time poster looking for a bit of advice.

I recently started(about 5 weeks ago) a HIIT program. (Doing this schedule: Muscle Media ) I'm 31 years old and I'm in pretty good shape and have been running regularly for a few years now. I'm now just trying to get as toned as possible, now that I have seriously started weight training as well. I figured HIIT was the way to go and have thus far really enjoyed the break from the long and boring runs I was doing before.

Now I have slightly high blood pressure, for which I am prescribed beta blockers(inderal) for. These beta blockers really keep my heart rate low and I have a hard time breaking into the 150's during HIIT sprints. However, if I run before I take my daily dose, my heart rate gets way too high before I even feel the burn and takes way too long to come back down to acceptable levels in between sprints.

My question is this: If I am really feeling it(breathing super-heavy and legs can barely keep going) after each sprint, but my heart rate is only at like 145, am I getting the effects out of HIIT or are the beta blockers stopping me from receiving the fat-burning effects. Or should I be more about going with how tired/winded I am and pay less attention to my heart rate?

I hope that all made sense and thanks in advance for any advice.

i would tell your doctor to switch you to ace inhibotors these are the best drugs to take for high blood pressure if you exercise as far as i know dont effect heartrate ir intensity , better still try and get off all drugs completely and try alternative medicine which is what i did a lot more expensive but i feel better for it

Soygen, after I had an angioplasty and stent in November 2006, me cardiologist put me on both a beta-blocker and an ace-inhibitor as routine meds for post-angioplasty and stent, although I did not have high blood pressure. I don't think the ace-inhibitor affected my heart rate, but the beta blocker did to me the same thing that it's doing to you, i.e., suppressing your heart rate. After I resumed exercising, my heart rate would not go above 130 and at 130 I was flat-out gased! I bitched to the cardiologist that 1. I didn't have high bp, 2. I complained of the standard side effect of a beta blocker, and 3. it had been 6 months since the angioplasty and stent. He somewhat reluctantly took me off the bb but told me to wear a heart monitor to watch my heart rate. I wore the hrm all the time for the first month after going off the bb and my heart rate went up to what I would have thought were "normal" rates; 145 at mid - high exertion with short peak bursts of 160. I told the cardiologist these numbers and he was pleased with those numbers. He thought I might get up to 180 or 200!

So, to answer your question, the bb are preventing your heart from beating too fast but I think you are getting a great workout nonetheless. My cardio fitness improved considerably during the 6 months I was on a beta blocker. If your cardiologist is okay with you doing HIIT (and I would damn sure ask him/her!!!), then I would recommend continue doing what you do.

But, I think I am one of the few cardiac patients on this forum. For specific cardiac/athletic questions, I recommend you join the cardiac athletes forum, Cardiac Athletes - the website for pioneers of cardiology. I am a member of that forum as well. There, you will get many more replies to questions of this nature.

Richard

This has been my experience with HIIT - both for myself and for hockey players I coached / trained.

We put the focus on a self perceived sense of " high intensity " - i.e we don't track heart rates. In other words, this meant we simply went ' as hard as we could ' / flat out during the work intervals and only stopped the work interval either after a set prescribed time ( i.e 1 or 2 minutes ) or - as you pointed out - the lactic acid burn ended the work interval for us. However, you needn't always have to feel a ' burn ' to be doing HIIT and to be getting the benefits from it. Though, we did it for our hockey players to try and improve their lactate threshold levels. That said, in all our HIIT training we never measured heartrates during the work interval itself - we simply went flat out as hard as we could during the work interval. Granted, we would sometimes use minimum recovery heartrates during rest intervals to determined when to start the work interval, but we just as often simply used times rest intervals of 2 - 4 minutes as well.

For what it's worth, the reputable trainer Alwyn Cosgrove has a simple HIIT protocol he suggests to help shred fat. His HIIT protocol is - 1 minute work interval going ' as hard as you can go ' followed by a 2 minute active recovery interval - which should only take anywhere from 20 - 30 minutes to do depending on how many work / recovery sets you do, warm-up, cool-down etc.

I'd add, that from a cardio fitness perspective, HIIT can help you with your aerobic ( Vo2 max ) capacity. And if you improve your aerobic ( Vo2 max ) capacity what ends up happening is that your muscles eventually develop more smaller blood vessels ( capillaries ) - which draw blood from the arteries, and in doing so, you end up lowering your overall blood pressure. But, in this case, the improved fitness is more a function of the recovery interval than the work interval, because you are training your heart to work and adapt under duress during the recovery interval.