Did you know that the timing of your cardio workouts largely determines your results? Cardio is an essential part of being healthy. In this episode, I explain exactly how to tell if your cardio is working for or against you, how to calculate your heart rate zones, why cardio is important (and when it’s not), and the three most common mistakes women over 40 make in their cardio.
Did you know that the timing of your cardio workouts largely determines your results? Cardio is an essential part of being healthy. In this episode, I explain exactly how to tell if your cardio is working for or against you, how to calculate your heart rate zones, why cardio is important (and when it’s not), and the three most common mistakes women over 40 make in their cardio.
When you get your cardio right, everything changes! While it is true that any exercise is better than no exercise, and that’s a great way to get back into exercise, once more movement becomes a habit, you will be ready to uplevel your programming so that you feel better, have more energy, and can really see the payoff from your efforts.
Looking fit doesn’t always mean being fit. The three main variables of programming are strength training, cardio, and nutrition. Depending on the variables, all effort is not the same! When it comes to cardio, it can truly make or break your results. Cardio improves your cardiovascular fitness. It's like a leg press for your heart! Cardio isn’t valuable, however, when your heart rate is too high, your workouts are too long, or when you haven’t eaten - especially for women over 40.
To make sure that you’re doing the best cardio for your body, you need to calculate your heart rate zone. It is commonly thought that your age determines how fast your heart can beat at its maximum, however, my work has shown this is not always the case. A significant study shows that women should use a different formula than men to calculate their heart rate zone: 206 minus 88% of their age. This will give you the low end of your maximal heart rate range. For the high end, calculate 220 minus your age.
Too much cardio or the wrong kind can slow your progress for women over 40. Instead, you'll want some workouts where your heart rate is around 60 to 70% of the age-predicted maximal heart rate. And then you'll want some workouts each week where your heart rate is between 80 and 85%, maybe 90% of your maximal heart rate. There are benefits that come from steady-state cardio workouts where your heart rate is in the moderate range and you keep it constant for 20, 30, or even 40 or more minutes. Then there are different benefits that come from workouts where your heart rate goes up and down at timed intervals. These types of cardio sessions improve your cardiovascular fitness and capacity as well as VO2 max.
I guarantee that if you apply the information from my podcast to your workouts, you will get results. And if you want even better results, more tailored to your body, please join one of my coaching programs! Remember, your age is NOT keeping you from the body you want!
If you're interested in womens health, this is the podcast for you.
Resources Mentioned
● Research on age-predicted maximal heart rate
● Research on how resistance exercise performance is negatively impacted by prior aerobic exercise
Transcripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode at hollyperkins.com/blog
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Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkins
Learn more on my website: hollyperkins.com
Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/HollyPerkinsFitness
Holly Perkins 00:00
Did you know that the timing of your cardio workouts largely dictates your results? If you're putting in the effort and not getting the results that you were hoping for, this could be why. Cardio can be your best friend or your worst foe. It's an essential piece of the health puzzle, and if you want to get your cardio right so that you get the benefits without the drawbacks, keep listening. Hello, and thank you for being here. It is a gorgeous day in June in rural Pennsylvania, and it literally feels like the first day of summer. We've had a terrible winter this whole year, and so, for some reason, the birds are particularly active. Hear them right outside of my studio. And so, if you hear them tweeting in the background, I hope it brings you some peace and some visions of this beautiful summer day.
Holly Perkins 00:59
If you are new around here, welcome. I'm Holly Perkins, and I help women improve their body composition so that you are at least 70% lean muscle. This is the mark where you can feel confident that you're reducing your risk of disease so that you can stay in the game of life and out of the rocking chair. And it also happens to be the body composition that looks and feels great. I'm super excited for this episode today because, number one, it's a very important topic, and yet it was brought to my attention that I've never done a whole episode on it. So we're doing that today. And you need this episode because it is going to simplify something that's often really confusing for women over 40. And even if it's not confusing, it's probably out of your awareness. And that, my friend, is cardio.
Holly Perkins 01:55
If you've ever found yourself wondering why you're not seeing the results when you are working out and eating clean and really trying, or if your cardio just feels like a chore and it's not really helping, you're in the right place, and you're not alone. Because this is exactly what this episode is about, and it's something I see on a regular basis. I'm going to walk you through why cardio might not be working for you, how to tell if it's actually working against you, and exactly how to get it right once and for all. Whether you're already in a consistent routine, getting back on track, or even just still trying to figure out where to begin, this episode will give you a clear, actionable plan that you can use today.
Holly Perkins 02:51
So in this episode, you'll learn a better formula for calculating your heart rate zones for cardio, why cardio is valuable and when it's not, the three most common cardio mistakes women over 40 are making every single day—maybe this is you—and how to use the RPE scale to stop overtraining and start getting results. And lastly, the simple, very simple, cardio strategy that I use so that you can get it right easily. Because when you do get cardio right, everything changes, and that is not an over-exaggeration. Recently, one of the participants from my coaching program, The Body Composition Project, told me that for the first time in her entire life of working out, she actually feels her cardiovascular system improving and her fitness changing.
Holly Perkins 03:52
Her cardio workouts feel different, and she can see the improvements from week to week. She's experiencing them in her cardio workouts instead of just sludging through them and having them always feel terrible. It's no surprise that when I reviewed her recent progress photos, I found out that she's getting incredible results, and I know without a doubt this is a piece of it. She looks smaller, she looks tighter, she looks leaner, and more than that, she looks younger. And she's over 50. Her abs are starting to show, and her shoulders and her arms look athletic. One of the biggest things I see when people get their cardio right is that their body fat around their midsection starts to change first, and that's really unusual most of the time.
Holly Perkins 04:44
For most women, when they don't have this right, the belly fat accumulation is the last to go. But when you get it right, your entire body composition changes, and you'll see the biggest changes first in your midsection. Before I really learned the power of right cardio, I thought that all workouts were the same and that every workout was a workout. Now I realize that might sound kind of redundant and silly, but the truth is you may be thinking the same thing. And any exercise is better than none. That is one of my basic tenets. So if you're someone who's getting back on track or even just starting your journey, I want you to just do something—anything—three to four times per week.
Holly Perkins 05:37
Then, once that habit is ingrained, we're going to get more specific about your cardio workouts. And that's what this episode is about. So for today, we're going to assume that you've already got that foundation down and you are now ready to tweak your programming to up-level it, so as to speak, so that you feel better, have more energy, and actually start seeing the payoff from your efforts. So, years ago, when I was young and dumb, I used to think that it didn't matter what kind of workout I was doing—that it should all lead me to looking more fit, right? Any workout, if it was hard, was going to make me look hard. And the truth is, nothing could be farther from the truth. And this is a big reason why I struggled hardcore through my 20s. It got better in my 30s, but I really struggled. And then once I figured it out in my 40s, exercise actually became easier. I started getting a lot more results with a lot less effort.
Holly Perkins 06:45
And this reminds me of a story from years and years ago when I starred in and created exercise DVDs. I was selected to create the workouts for a very prominent fitness celebrity. So it was kind of like the down-low—nobody knows that she didn't actually create the workouts that you saw. If you bought her exercise DVD, I was the one that was creating it. I taught it to her, and then she was on camera. And by the way, this is very common for more prominent personalities and celebrities, if you will, because they don't have to dedicate their time and their energy. They let someone else who knows it better do it for them, and then they show up and be the face or the talent. It's totally normal. Anyway, I digress. So on the day of this fitness video shoot, one of her exercise models—
Holly Perkins 07:42
So you know, if you remember old-school exercise videos where you would have the lead instructor and then you'd have a couple of people behind—the person demonstrating low intensity or no impact or just a variety of variations and modifications for exercises. So I've always called them the backup dancers, but they're really technically exercise models. And there was this young woman—probably was in her late 20s—and she looked insanely fit. Like, crazy fit. She showed up and she was ripped. R-I-P-P-E-D. She was chiseled in all the right places. Her arms were super defined. Her waist was snatched. And I remember my first impression was like, wow. Whoa.
Holly Perkins 08:29
Okay, this person is next-level fit. I'm so excited. She's the perfect person for this video. So, cut to a few hours later during the actual shoot—this young woman was on the struggle bus. She was struggling hard. She was using light weights, three to five pounds, and production had to keep taking breaks because she couldn't physically keep up. And it wasn't because the workouts were hard—that's not the reason. It was because she wasn't actually as fit as she looked. She had manipulated her diet to look lean and fit, but she wasn't actually in shape. And that was a huge moment for me in my career when I really realized that a person's aesthetic might not necessarily reflect their athleticism.
Holly Perkins 09:30
We see this with professional athletes all the time. There are some athletes that are wicked fit, but they don't look like it. Why is that? Largely, it's nutrition. So this may seem that I'm kind of off the mark here because I'm talking about nutrition, but the truth is, I believe this really illuminates the concept that the variables in your programming are just that. They are variables. They are all different. And each is important, and each has a result. There's a cause and effect for each of these variables, and looking fit doesn't always equate to being fit. This was a turning point for me as a coach, because I started getting super specific about the three main components of programming—the three main variables: number one, your strength training and conditioning protocols;
Holly Perkins 10:32
Number two, your cardio programming; and number three, nutrition. All three of those things are very different, equally important variables, and depending on your programming and how that plays out, it's going to influence how you feel, what you look like, and how quickly you make progress. In other words, all effort isn't the same. And today, you're going to get insights into how to make your cardio more effective. I want to start with a truth bomb. Cardio is a tool that will either make or break your results—full stop. It could be the missing piece that you need in order to start seeing results, or it could be the very thing that's causing your struggles. So let's talk about why cardio is actually valuable.
Holly Perkins 11:26
If you're a regular listener of my podcast, you might get the impression that I downplay the value of cardio. And that's actually not true. As I said, it's one of the three main components. Cardio is super important. And I've found that a lot of people misunderstand it and they abuse it—they don't do it properly. But it's very valuable, super important, and everyone needs to get it right. So, number one, cardio improves your cardiovascular health and fitness. It's not just about burning calories. Your heart is a muscle, and it needs specific exercise. That is what cardio is for. It's like the leg press for your heart. But your heart can't do a leg press, so we have to give it a different stimulus.
Holly Perkins 12:20
Number two, cardio boosts mood and endorphins, self-esteem, your outlook on the world, your psychology, and how you feel and experience the world—when you do it correctly. Number three, cardio increases circulation, and that is super beneficial for brain health and longevity. Number four, it facilitates recovery from other workouts. Number five, it improves glucoregulatory control and insulin sensitivity. Number six, it lowers blood pressure, if that's important for you. And number seven, it reduces stress—again, when you're doing it correctly. Now, I could continue on and on, because I wonder if you noticed that I didn't even mention cardio for fat burning. And it is good for that, and it's good for weight maintenance, but in my opinion, the value of cardio is so far beyond weight loss. And if you're doing it wrong, it may not help you lose weight anyway, if that's your goal.
Holly Perkins 13:29
So let's talk about when cardio isn't valuable. Number one, when your heart rate is too high according to either your age, your fitness level, or even your goal. Honestly, I'll be honest—I don't do much. High heart rate, high-intensity cardio is counterproductive for me. I don't feel well when I do it. It wipes me out. I tend to have a more delicate constitution, and it just doesn't serve me. And I have clients where it's really beneficial. But the key is, again, it has to be prescriptive. The next reason why it isn't valuable is when your workouts—cardio workouts in particular—are too frequent, or they are too long in duration.
Holly Perkins 14:11
Number three, it's not valuable when you haven't eaten. I am not a fan of fasted cardio. If you're new to my podcast, welcome to the conversation. I think that fasted workouts and fasted cardio is a fast track to disaster. And last, it isn't valuable as a primary tool or strategy for weight loss. I think I've made that point very clear. So how do you get it right? The first thing is to determine your specific heart rate zones. Snore, right? Most people do not care about this. Most people glaze over when I talk about it. It's something that so few people do—except for the people who get great results.
Holly Perkins 14:58
So if you haven't done this yet, please do. And listen, my friend, if you are sitting there or driving or doing something else while you listen to me, I'm going to give you some numbers today. And if you're not able to take notes right now, come over to my website later. And when you're ready to calculate, you're going to click into my blog tab. So on my website, hollyperkins.com, there's a blog tab, or you could do hollyperkins.com forward slash blog. My blog is all of my podcast episodes. So as soon as you click in there, if you don't see this episode right away, Getting Cardio Right, just use the search function and type in “cardio,” and it will come up. That way, you can go back, get the information, and actually write it down and figure out some numbers that I'm going to give you in a minute. My most successful clients live and die by their targeted heart rate zones for workouts—cardio workouts in particular—and it's not what you think. First, 99.999%
Holly Perkins 16:06
of online calculators will estimate your heart rate ranges based on a very generic age-predicted maximal heart rate formula. The notion, and I would argue the fact, is that your age determines how fast your heart can beat at its maximum. As you get older, the theory goes, your maximal heart rate declines. Now, there's been a lot of research to demonstrate this, and I've got more to say on that, because my anecdotal evidence as a coach leads me to believe it's not crystal clear. As always, I've linked some research in the show notes here. Now, I am a good student, and I respect research. I respect academia, and so we collectively accept that this concept is law—that your maximal heart rate and your heart rate ranges should be based on your age, and that as you get older, that range is going to decline.
Holly Perkins 17:17
But as a coach who's been in practice every single day, sometimes seven days a week, working directly with women—and men, but now mostly women—I've found that it is not 100% accurate at all. In fact, cardio heart rate ranges really vary greatly for a number of reasons. For example, my best friend's age-predicted maximal heart rate is 167 beats per minute. Okay, that is what science says is the maximum amount that her heart rate could be in a minute—167 beats per minute. So in theory, she can't have a higher heart rate than that. But she's an avid runner, and her heart rate goes way higher than that all the time—despite, of course, my begging her not to.
Holly Perkins 18:14
That's what she loves. She loves a tough run, and her heart rate gets up to 187–190—way above her age-predicted maximal heart rate. So understand that the only way we truly know your maximal heart rate is by hooking you up in a lab and doing a maximal stress test. And so most people won't do that. So we have to have a way to estimate, and that is what this OG old-school equation will do for you. This is where the equations come in. And there's a number of different equations. The original—and some would say the best—method is simply to take your current age and subtract it from the number 220. So 220 minus your age. We hear this all the time, and that's what's called your age-predicted maximal heart rate, give or take 15 or 20 beats per minute as a margin of error.
Holly Perkins 19:16
And this is where the art meets the science, because most people, I find, do have to adjust it up or down a little bit. Not to go off on a tangent, but if you're someone who has an autoimmune disorder, autoimmune symptoms, or a thyroid disorder, I find that we have to adjust your heart rate downward significantly, as compared to this standard formula of 220 minus your age. So if you're taking notes, write that down. Then, a large study out of Northwestern Medicine, a very prominent medical school, determined that women should be using a different equation altogether, and that equation is the number 206 minus 88% of your age. And I have found this formula is way more effective for the majority of my clients.
Holly Perkins 20:09
When I discovered this formula maybe 15–18 years ago, it was like my brain exploded, and I was like, That is it! That explains so much! So inside of my coaching programs, I've created a very elaborate calculation and a spreadsheet that uses all of the various equations to arrive at a super accurate estimate for your age-predicted maximal heart rate using a number of different formulas. When we do it that way, we tend to get it right for you. I recommend using the two equations that I've mentioned to determine a range for your estimated maximal heart rate.
Holly Perkins 20:53
So, number one, you want to write down the number 206 minus 88% of your age, and that is the low end of your estimated maximal heart rate. And then, number two, calculate 220 minus your age, and that is the high end of your estimated maximal heart rate—age-predicted maximal heart rate. And you've got to know this range in order to get started and in order to determine the intensity of your weekly workouts. It makes all the difference.
Holly Perkins 21:26
So let's talk about some common mistakes I see that women over 40 make on the regular when they come to me for coaching. Number one: too much cardio—or the wrong kind of cardio—can actually slow your progress, especially after 40, because cardio can be very catabolic, and it can increase, and really does increase, levels of chronic systemic inflammation, otherwise known as CSI (not your favorite TV show). I've talked about this on a number of my episodes. Silent inflammation is a real problem, and the wrong kind of cardio really tends to bump it upward. If your workouts leave you feeling exhausted instead of energized, or if you've hit a frustrating plateau and you hate your cardio workouts—
Holly Perkins 22:22
it's possible that your cardio strategy just needs a smarter approach. Undoubtedly, the most common mistake is doing cardio that hasn't been programmed based on your heart rate. Cardio is like baking. It requires measured and precise amounts of each ingredient. And if you've never baked before, when I was younger, I was really into baking because I loved the precision of it. So imagine baking a cake, and instead of using two cups of all-purpose flour, you use two cups of salt. And instead of using a teaspoon of salt, you use a teaspoon of flour. Great example, right? You can imagine—that cake ain't gonna turn out. Cardio is exactly the same. You can't just wing it.
Holly Perkins 23:19
Well, the truth is, you can wing it if you're happy with the results that you're getting. And if you're perfectly happy with your fitness and your energy and your body composition, then if that's you, you can listen with a grain of salt, because this is then less important. But if you want better results, it definitely starts here. Using the equations that I just reviewed, you'll want to establish your theoretical, estimated, age-predicted maximum heart rate range. I know that's a lot of languaging, but it really just means you've got to get a place to start. Then you plan your workouts each week based on that. And while we could get super complex with different kinds of cardio workouts—and listen, if you're a competitive runner or an endurance athlete, you'll need to—but for most mere mortals, it's pretty simple.
Holly Perkins 24:15
You'll want some workouts where your heart rate is around 60 to 70% of that age-predicted maximal heart rate. And then you'll want some workouts each week where your heart rate is between 80 and 85%, maybe 90%, of your maximal heart rate. There's basically two different kinds of cardio workouts, in simplest form. Now, the length of the workouts varies based on your fitness level, your goals, your body fat, your body composition. And when you work with me, we'll get very specific about those details. But for now, we're going to focus on the high-level considerations here, and therefore those.
Holly Perkins 25:00
The types of cardio workouts and the ratio that's best—coming up next. But first, okay, so now that you know you need to calculate your heart rate ranges, you might wonder what to do with those numbers. And of course, I'm going to answer that. But first, let's discuss how to monitor your heart rate. I know this might seem elementary, but you'd be surprised at how many fit women are like, "Huh? I actually need to track my heart rate?" So here's my quick triage. What's best? A heart rate monitor chest strap that communicates either with your cardio equipment, a paired watch, or a smartphone. Almost as good is a biometric device like an Apple Watch or a Fitbit.
Holly Perkins 25:48
Okay, in a pinch is using the built-in contact heart rate sensors on the equipment that you're using, where you grip your hand on the little metal sensor. And the thing with that that you want to know is that they're not super accurate, and also, it can take about 10 seconds to show your current heart rate. So it's really not my favorite. And then the last one, that's good but tricky, is using manual palpation. This means you take your first two fingers and you place them along your neck, and you palpate your actual beating heart, and you count for 10 to 30 seconds and calculate that out for beats per minute. Now that we've got that all covered, let's discuss the second mistake I see women making all the time. Because you might be tracking your heart rate and achieving the right percentages, but you might have the wrong ratio of types of workouts that you want to include each week.
Holly Perkins 26:46
Again, this could get super, super complex, but I'm going to keep it super simple for you. There are benefits that come from steady-state cardio workouts where your heart rate is in the moderate range, and you keep it constant for 20, 30, or even 40 or more minutes. This type of cardio workout has its own benefits, and that's why it's one of the two types of cardio workouts you need. Specifically, this is where we get the majority of beta oxidation for fat burning. This is where you get the benefits of recovery and mood boost. Then, there are different benefits that come from workouts where your heart rate goes up and down at timed intervals. These are the types of cardio sessions that actually improve your cardiovascular fitness and capacity. This is the type of cardio that improves your VO2 max.
Holly Perkins 27:44
And some experts feel that VO2 max is like grip strength—that it's a key predictor of longevity. So don't make the mistake of just doing the types of cardio workouts that you feel like doing each week, and instead, plan it out. Number one: aim for three to four steady-state cardio-specific workouts each week. And number two: aim for one to two interval workouts each week. Now listen, this is going to be dependent on a number of factors, but this is a very general good place to start. And there's one more mistake I want to cover because it's especially relevant for women over 40, and that is not adjusting your cardio for your age and/or your fitness level on a weekly basis. I hear from women who are doing high-intensity interval training—HIIT workouts—when they've got no business doing it. Your cardio workouts should reflect your current fitness level, not the fitness level that you're striving for.
Holly Perkins 28:57
You might be tempted to think that the killer, super-hard, crush-you workout class is what leads to a super fit, ripped body—but it doesn't. In fact, it tends to lead to overtraining, overreaching, and just plain wiped-out, carb-craving exhaustion. If you're over 40, your workouts need to reflect the hormone stage of life that you're in. And if you're over 40 and your estrogen is declining and your inflammation is on the rise, you have to be very careful with high-intensity workouts, as well as too much volume—too many minutes of cardio per week. Now listen, if you'd rather that I just hand you programming so that you don't have to figure all this out on your own, you can get—for free—my six-week strength and cardio plan.
Holly Perkins 29:53
It spells out all of this for you. It's one of my most popular free downloads, and that way, you can just get the download, focus on your workout. Come over to hollyperkins.com/offer—O, F, F, E, R—and you'll get instant access to that for free. It's a downloadable PDF. It's a great resource. And another strategy that I use there is to adjust your cardio workouts based on what's called a rating of perceived exertion, otherwise known as an RPE scale. This is a symptom-based rating scale that encapsulates how effortful your workout feels to you, and the research shows that it's highly effective once you know how to use it. So here, rather than monitoring your actual and exact heart rate values with a monitor, you'll periodically assess how hard you're working.
Holly Perkins 30:51
So at any given moment during your cardio session, you'll simply ask yourself, "Self, how hard does this feel?" And you want to take a quick snap assessment of that answer, and you want to include all of the general sensations of the workout in that moment. How hard is your breathing? How tired do your legs feel? Do you feel terrible, or do you feel good? It's a general gut instinct reaction to how effortful the workout feels at any given moment. Research shows there is high correlation between what you feel and what your heart rate is doing.
Holly Perkins 31:32
Then you assign a value from the RPE scale. The most effective OG RPE scale is called the Borg RPE scale, and it's chronological from the number six to the number 20. And this is what you'll generally see in medical environments or labs because it's the official and most accurate way to use an RPE scale. But personally, I find it's a bit more confusing. When I try to explain to people six to 20 and what that represents, they're like, "Wait, what's a six? What's an 11? 13? 14? 15?" It gets confusing. And so I find that it's so much easier, and it's a quicker reference, to just use a one-to-10 scale.
Holly Perkins 32:16
So on this imaginary, kind of arbitrary one-to-10 scale, you want to rate how hard you're working at any given moment during your cardio, where one equals as if you were laying on your couch late at night falling asleep, and a 10 equals if I showed up in your living room and I made you sprint 10 miles as fast as possible. One is little to nothing, and 10 is the hardest exercise you could possibly ever imagine.
Holly Perkins 32:46
Then, your steady-state workouts should be somewhere around a five or a six on that one-to-10 scale, and your interval workouts should be somewhere between an eight or a nine on that one-to-10 scale. And if you do it this way, there is a good chance it's gonna correlate to the appropriate heart rate percentage without having to calculate those numbers. And that, my friend, is pretty much all you need to start getting better results from your cardio now.
Holly Perkins 33:18
Listen, people reach out to me all the time asking for specific details. It's important to understand that you're listening to a free public forum here. I'm speaking to thousands and thousands and thousands of women, so some of the information here on the podcast has to be a bit generic. That's why I offer coaching programs, so that we can get specific to some of these tweaks for your body. That all being said, if you take the information you hear in my free podcast and you apply it, I can pretty much guarantee you're going to at least start getting better results.
Holly Perkins 33:52
If you're currently struggling, you may be tempted to think that your age is keeping you from the body that you want, but I promise you—it's not. You and I both know there's a woman out there who is older than both of us, and she's more fit than both of us. And so it's possible for you to be a little better than you are right now. And if you keep putting one foot in front of the other, and you keep progressing forward, before you know it, you're going to be that example of the super-fit woman showing everyone what's possible. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for being here, and make sure that you stay tuned for a brand new episode on Tuesday next week. Stay strong, my friend.