Long story short:
My mother’s interest in running has steadily been increasing over the past year. She is consistently putting in 4 runs a week and calls me as soon as she breaks a new pace/mileage. She’s in her early 50s and is on a beta blocker for her high blood pressure. Would a heart rate monitor be a complete waste for her to somewhat guide her training due to the beta blocker?
A heart rate monitor ought to be effective for monitoring intensity.
The beta-blocker will lower heart rate a variable amount based on: Actual Medication, Dosage, Heart Health.
As long as appropriate ranges are established, then it is useful.
To use a general approximation is always suspect, but even more so with medication.
It would work, like everyone else she’ll need to establish her training levels based on her own testing, not some formula.
Well, I was just curious as to the levels… Would her hypothetical “max” without the medication (ex. 175) just become her max with medication (ex. 140) and then adjust all the training zones accordingly?
A beta blocker doesn’t let your heart go quickly as we all are saying here. But it also means that the intensity levels do not really get to the same point as they did in the past before you reach exhaustion.
When I was on both metaprolol and flecainide my peak HR was about 126. Even with the most intense effort. Needless to say, the effort was far below what I would normally have been able to do with my peak HR of 203. Now after my ablations and just on the flecainide I can squeek up into the 180’s during a really intense session.
The only reason I would even use a HRM myself was to make sure I didn’t have any spikes which would indicate an a-fib session. Otherwise it was worthless for me when on medication because I couldn’t actually get a defined set of zones.
I’m not sure if she’s already done this, but has she spoken to her doctor? There are other alternatives to beta blockers for high blood pressure that do not impact training. ACE inhibitors or ARBs to mention two. I am on ARBs and it has no ill effects on my training at all.