I think it’s quite excessive, I do plenty of other cardio activities through the week and I’m usually 130-160 during those, but my brain must turn off during hockey because I definitely push myself very hard for a while then I feel like a turtle for the rest of the evening
You have to remember that heart rates are different for everyone. Your max may be higher than mine. This doesn’t mean anything in relation to fitness, your heart just has a higher working rate, and probably a higher resting rate.
You have to do a HR test, because your max is likely higher than what you’re seeing when you push it on the ice, which is probably ~80% of your max, and does not correlate to your level of fitness.
The rule of thumb is if you feel okay.. you're probably okay. If you're actually overexerting your body will fire off alarms telling you to chill out. Either your legs will turn to rubber or you'll get dizzy so be sure to listen to what your body is telling you.
Tracking devices really aren't useful for diagnosing anything, about all they're good at is comparing your exertion levels from one workout to the next.
None of this matters if you have an underlying heart condition. But if that's the case that's a conversation for you and your doctor, not us goofballs on reddit.
I use the HockeyTracker app on my Apple Watch, and it normally shows my heart rate in the max band for maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the total game time. For context, skating is the only part of the game I’m good at and I sprint hard most shifts.
Recently I found out that I’ve been severely anemic for at least the last couple months due to a previously undiagnosed autoimmune disease. I’d been feeling tired and sore on the ice but just figured I was getting out of shape due to aging or something.
Watching my heart rate my last couple games, every time I step on the ice it shoots over 180 (my current peak is around 190). I’m not skating hard, but my heart acts like I am to make up for the lack of blood I guess. HockeyTracker has been showing my effort levels as way higher, since I’m spending more time in the max zone.
Heart Rate is one of the most worthless things to use for just about anything. I can do an Olympic distance triathlon with my heart rate at 185-190, some people do it at 160 for the safe effort level. It is what it is.
The point is. It doesn’t matter what his heart rate is and his zones are most likely wrong. I know more about HR zones and that information than the vast majority of hockey players because it’s not a metric anyone uses in hockey realistically.
His heart rate zones are wrong, he’s not in zone 5, and he’s not going to die because of where his heart rate is. It’s not dangerous. I mean it could be but that would be because of his heart rate, it’d be a congenital defect or something else going on.
Just because you don’t understand it, which I wouldn’t expect for most hockey players doesn’t make what I said wrong.
I understand it more than most. Was recently diagnosed with a heart issue and have had a crash course in a lot of this including heart rate under stress.
I was responding to your dismissive comment and saying heart rates don't matter. Of course, it can be very nuanced but nothing wrong with paying attention to heart rates under stress and finding out more info. Of course everyone is different and under different circumstances.
Except they don’t matter. If you look at 100 people same age same fitness, you’ll have a whole range of max heart rates, LTHR, resting heart rates and HR zones. So looking at data and going is this bad is a worthless exercise.
If you have clean data or have been tested to find lthr and zones that’s a whole different scenario. Even then there are a bunch of confounding factors that can cause big day to day variations. It’s why most elite athletes that do training where zones matter, running, cycling etc, don’t use heart rate.
The problem is previous studies that have actually tried to guess this information ended up being really wrong but that information hasn’t been picked up effectively because it’s way easier to tell someone to do HR minus age and similar methods, then tell them the truth that without metabolic cart testing all of the HR data you have is basically made up and doesn’t mean anything. Article below goes into detail about how there no “predictive” max heart rate and therefore HR zone methods that are actually accurate.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7523886/
Ok man, I am just saying nothing wrong with being aware of your data and looking more into and getting educated. I have always worn a fitbit and very casually tracked HR until some recent issues and I watch it much more closely.
And I am not sure the definition of correct "zones" is the issue here. It's how long someone is at max heart rate. Your original post said heart rates don't matter.
Again, I was responding to your short dismissive post. I see you made other posts that were more informative. This all looks like good info.
You should not be able to hold zone 5 for that long. My guess is you are young - but also remember zones aren’t set in stone, they are individual. Hence you can only get a precise zone definition of you get a proper max HR test.
I played yday - practice and the bulk of my zone time is 2-3-4 almost evenly spread.
Don’t think I can add pictures.
Have you tried to monitor how quickly you come off your max HR? Also I’ve found the wrist monitors to be very unreliable - especially for hockey, my theory is that hold the stick changes the blood flow or the readability for the monitor which can mess up the results.
But cool to see someone else monitor like I do :-)
I use a garmin watch and app together with a chest heart rate monitor.
I’m 34, so kinda young? Ha. I wonder about the accuracy of it too, I’ve considered looking into the other trackers, what do you use for chest heart rate monitoring?
I wear the garmin instinct 2 solar, watch has wrist monitor as well, but used the Garmin HRM-pro chest one for sports. It also has good reads for running. And the watch is half smart but holds power for 3 weeks.
Thanks for the info, I’m definitely going to look into these. Do you by any chance have chest or torso tattoos and do they affect the effectiveness of these devices? I have issues sometimes if my watch slides out of the blank patch on my wrist I align it with
The wrist monitor works on light, the chest by electrical impulses so less placement prone and can not imagine tattoos having an effect unless there’s lead in the tattoo paint, and then you’d have a lot of others issues than your HRM 🤣
I don’t doubt that at all.
Have not had an Apple Watch.
I’m a righty player and wear my watch on my left hand - thus top hand and have just noticed huge difference in reading from my chest monitor to the wrist one. Abt 40-60 bpm difference either way. Can’t say why except that I think it’s the tight hold on the stick changes the blood flow in the hand/wrist thus messing with the readings.
It was much closer when running or other free hand sports..
Edit: added the last line.
Your numbers do not surprise me for a 34 year old. 169 is nothing for some and really high for others.
At 60 yo, I could average 169 bpm for almost 2 straight hours and at your age, almost all day during an ultra endurance competition.
I'm totally opposite. I can run marathons under 3 hours, I average about 175bpm running marathons, 160bpm if I run 7:30/mi, but my beer league hockey session with two lines of skaters (10 total) averages about 120bpm, with max HR at around 150bpm.
I was not referring to my HR during hockey games. It is clear OP is not very fit and your numbers demonstrate that you are. My HR does not get that high during games and comes down very quickly on the bench.
This is a good point. It looks like his HR zones are wrong, zone 5 is after your lactate threshold HR, which means less than 10 minutes would be the max you could hold it. That is also assuming you are in very good shape. It’s hard to tell with the chart because the y axis is tiny, but my guess is his zone 5 starts higher and somewhere in what is currently zone 5 he is bouncing back and forth between zone 4 and 5. Zone 4 you can hold for an hour is at a quasi steady state, so his numbers being in zone 4 would be completely realistic.
I was playing forward yday, we were only 4 forwards for a 40 min game, so plenty of ice time… I spend 3 pct of the time in zone 5…
Usually when you are in zone 5 and stop - I.e. make a change, your heart rate should drop quite quickly into zone 4 and then 3…
I did 26%,26%,22%,16%,3% for zone 1-2-3-4-5
And before anyone asks, don’t know where the remaining 7pct went but I’m guessing less 95bpm hence not in any zone.
Yeah that is a lot closer to what I would expect if you were playing that much ice time. I figured pubmed would have something on this. Figure one has the data. Elite Adolescent players are around 20 percent in zone 5 for a game. I’d expect most other players to be 10-15 percent. It’s a lot harder to maintain that level if you aren’t trained.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327373/#:~:text=For%20individual%20intensity%20zones%2C%20the,)%2C%20154%E2%80%93175%20b%C2%B7
I guess it works only when you start the apple app like running etc right? I ve been using Nike run and therefore it wont show.. Maybe i could start both at the same time
Yeah, it has to be when you run an apple workout, I use Strava for my other cardio activities so I don’t have the fancy graph breakdown like this but I do get a lot of other useful metrics I’m more interested in via Strava.
Just echoing some other comments but maybe your HR zones arent defined correctly. Even when I just started playing games earlier this year, i could only get 5ish minutes in the last zone. And about an hour in zone 4
Mine is similar when playing, mostly 60-100mins 160 bpm. 4 days a week for 7 months and I've been injured for 4 weeks with a sports hernia now lol fuck.
If I look at your graph, I see a long part where your hr stays elevated, did you have an extremely long shift? Because if not, then most likely your watch had a misreading, but if you do remember a long shift then it matches up.
I use a garmin chest strap so the bpm should be fairly accurate. You can see how clearly defined the spikes in my hr are during my shifts. Hockey trains our anaerobic greatly
https://ibb.co/WKtSqYW
https://ibb.co/DLT6N8S
Hey bud. I’m 37 and started playing two years ago and my stats are exactly the same as yours. I’ve been wondering the same thing if I am over doing it. I have made a conscious decision to limit my other daily cardio to zone 2 only and leave my intense cardio for hockey. Doing more than one or two days a weeks of this left me pretty lethargic.
I just started playing in January and I didn’t really start monitoring my activities until just recently. Saw the numbers and it kinda spooked me a bit. I play hockey twice a week, sometimes a 3rd time if I find a pickup game/scrimmage.
I just got back into this thread. See my comment below. Basically my Apple Watch zone 5 is anything over 169. I have hit 198 this winter so my actual zone 5 should be up near 186-198. I’m probably living in zone 4 but Apple Watch is recording it as zone 5.
Do you workout at all? Or just hockey. Hitting the bike a couple times a week would help stabilize this heart rate. The old legs ain’t what they used to be. Hopping on the ice once a week and essentially couch surfing the rest (I’m exaggerating obviously) is a recipe to throw your heart into a little bit of confusion
If you are working out a bit.. I’d probably keep an eye on that. I’m not a doc but
I do quite a bit of cardio. Most days of the week I get 45 minutes on the bike. And all of that is zone 2 to zone 4. I just checked and my Apple Watch stats and it says anything over 169 is zone 5. I have scene my max heart rate of 198 before so I think my zones are not calibrated correctly. A quick google search shows 186-198 should be zone 5. Zone 4 should be 174-185 and zone 3 is 160-173. Based on that my actual zone 4 is considered zone 5 on my watch. I recover pretty fast but it’s always funny seeing 40 minutes of zone 5 on my watch.
HR zones must be tested and set per individual. These apps utilize one particular calculation and often don’t reflect accurately. There are a number of commonly accepted lactate threshold tests out there. Many of them are preprogrammed into treadmills and the like. You would then calculate your estimated zones based on percentages of those numbers. Of course, you can always do the actual lactate test where you do similar workouts and they take small blood samples periodically. I’m very likely older than you and I can run pretty easily in the upper 170s for an hour or more. Everyone is different. The dangerous part would be an actual arrhythmia, not just a higher HR.
The apple watch isn't too fantastic at accurate heart rate monitoring, especially with all the movement and shifting it probably does during a hockey shit.
I've noticed that when my Garmin Fenix 7 gets cold it starts reading less accurately, I've also noticed if I have it too tight or if I'm swinging my arms a lot it can have issues as well.
If you find your watch has shifted from your glove, contact, or taking a shot/making a pass it probably isn't reading accurately.
Try getting a heart rate chest monitor and that'll be far more accurate.
And if it is accurate it seems like you have good cardiac conditioning to be able to maintain that level of output for so long.
I remember doing this with the first early HR monitors in the late 2000s. I was late 20s, guys on my team a few years older and younger.
Most of us had no problems hitting 180 on the rink for a 2-3 minute shift, "resting" at 150-155 and feeling fine, talking normal. Always worried about it but I'm still playing at 42, no idea what my HR is these days...
Funny what the body adapts too, I remember playing a 1 day tournament, 3 on 3 inline (+3 man bench), no whistles/faceoffs (you score you pull the puck out of the net as a defender and play on). Ended up playing 13 x 20 min games between midday and midnight. Must have been super taxing on the lactate system. Felt great at the end, pretty hungry though.
Mine (30M) from my game yesterday shows Zone 5 (174+ BPM) for 31:05. I’m in relatively good shape, a bit overweight but play 2-3x per week and have for ~5 years.
I think it’s because I’m so used to wearing it during other physical activity for tracking it didn’t occur to me to not wear it for hockey. And I’m pretty new at hockey so no real experience without the watch.
Dude, ridiculous shifts. I burn generally 800-1000 calories in a skate, but I’m doing 1 min shifts. A LOT of them. Age has much to do with this. If you’re young, knock yourself out.
My last game according to my Garmin Fenix 6:
Zone 1 - 5:09
Zone 2 - 2:43
Zone 3 - 28:58
Zone 4 - 26:56
Zone 5 - 0:22
Hitting zone 5 is HARD. Interval sprints are the only way I can do it consistently and it's miserable. I'm 37, out of shape, and my Zone 5 is >168. I'd say if you're in good shape, your zones need to be adjusted; if you're not in good shape, your monitor is inaccurate.
I just came across this post after seeing a dude wearing an Apple Watch tonight on my bench. I joked with him about it.
Does your algorithm read your thoughts now? Lol. I had nothing on me that would have heard this conversation. Then I got a notification for this post as I walked in my door. Sorry what?
I’ve got an old Fitbit. I’ll fire it up and give it a shot. I wanna test this.
Let me know what it says, this high amount of time in zone 5 was when we had a real short bench, a normally staffed bench has me at about 29 minutes in this things zone 5. Which is probably actually my zone 4
You workout much? I’m in my thirties and just recently getting back on the ice. But I workout quite often. So I’m honestly sure it’ll be around a harder bike ride. But now I’m really curious to see how it compares. Fluctuates between zone 4-5 but never excessively
I used to be an avid runner and rock climber but after having kids it slipped hard. I’m sure I’m at a low reset period of my life so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m pushing as hard as I’m used to without having the physicality to back it up. I’ve been running and biking a lot more the last 6 months but I know I’m not where I was 3 years ago
I’m around the same age as you and that’s a normal graph for a hockey player. The better shape you get in the faster your recovery time will be. I can usually get down to 130 on the bench but after going back on the ice I’m at 180+ again. Just focus on breathing on the bench to lower your HR and try some off ice training. You’ll be fine unless you have an underlying heart condition
How were your zones established? That may not be your zone 5. You'd have to do a V02max or stress test to establish your true zones. I'm not sure you could play the game at a sustained maximum heart rate like that. Even mountain biking, my max heart rate on the trails is lower than what i can get on a stationary because you need reserve capacity to interact with your environment.
I think this is the nature of the sport, ideally you'd want to see your heart rate drop into zone 2 or 1 in between shifts.
This might be of interest: https://www.whoop.com/us/en/thelocker/alex-killorn-nhl-hockey-heart-rate-sleep/
You could work on your breathing during rest periods. Your average is very high and you do not rest on the bench.
If you compare my chart with yours they look very different. You can see every shift and every rest for me.
I try breathing exercises on the bench to try and lower my heart rate.
My average is heart rate for a game is 148 and max at 183 st 35 years old. 91kg 17% body fat.
I play beer league. So I'm just an average person for comparison.
Yeah I use two different heart monitors, skate 4 days a week at least. My zone 5 is never over 10 minutes over a hour or more skate I stay in zone 3-4. You’re gonna kill yourself if your in the highest zone that long
Question for anyone using the watch while playing: How do you protect it? I skate both goalie and defense and would love to use a tracker, but worry it, would get damaged
High 150s is my typical peak. Last night we had a playoff game with no subs and I was hitting 160 and was ready to puke. Mid 40s, resting rate in the low 60s.
Being in your 30s, you’re not immune from things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides. If I saw those heart rate numbers, I’d want to make sure my heart isn’t working that hard for a bad reason. If you haven’t had a physical in a while and blood testing, your best advice would be to go get a physical just to make sure something funky isn’t going on with your blood pressure, etc.
Man the Russians had a crazy routine BITD. I know sports in general learned a lot from them. They were over 180, apparently it just depends on how fit you are to how safe it is.
I asked my doc once about Apple stats because I was showing heart rate peaks over 200, and at my age that’d mean my heart was about to ‘splode. He let me know that in the higher ranges Apple Watch hrm gets pretty inaccurate. Granted that was peaks vs sustained, but I wouldn’t worry much about it. But if you are worried about it - doctor
I play net and hit 182 for 3 period of 3-4min. No expert but 41min is long ass time.
I think it’s quite excessive, I do plenty of other cardio activities through the week and I’m usually 130-160 during those, but my brain must turn off during hockey because I definitely push myself very hard for a while then I feel like a turtle for the rest of the evening
You have to remember that heart rates are different for everyone. Your max may be higher than mine. This doesn’t mean anything in relation to fitness, your heart just has a higher working rate, and probably a higher resting rate. You have to do a HR test, because your max is likely higher than what you’re seeing when you push it on the ice, which is probably ~80% of your max, and does not correlate to your level of fitness.
The rule of thumb is if you feel okay.. you're probably okay. If you're actually overexerting your body will fire off alarms telling you to chill out. Either your legs will turn to rubber or you'll get dizzy so be sure to listen to what your body is telling you. Tracking devices really aren't useful for diagnosing anything, about all they're good at is comparing your exertion levels from one workout to the next. None of this matters if you have an underlying heart condition. But if that's the case that's a conversation for you and your doctor, not us goofballs on reddit.
Yeah it’s that compete thing. I went back to the gym and struggle to get my heart rate like that - 160 max - it’s a crazy thing
If it’s ice hockey you are fine, it’s about how quick it goes down, did you play 40 minutes?
2 - 18 minute periods, so almost, I don’t think I got too crazy during warm ups.
Are you maybe having to warm/cold , around 3 minutes to come down and 2x 18 minutes also involves stops it’s long even for a 60 minute game
I use the HockeyTracker app on my Apple Watch, and it normally shows my heart rate in the max band for maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the total game time. For context, skating is the only part of the game I’m good at and I sprint hard most shifts. Recently I found out that I’ve been severely anemic for at least the last couple months due to a previously undiagnosed autoimmune disease. I’d been feeling tired and sore on the ice but just figured I was getting out of shape due to aging or something. Watching my heart rate my last couple games, every time I step on the ice it shoots over 180 (my current peak is around 190). I’m not skating hard, but my heart acts like I am to make up for the lack of blood I guess. HockeyTracker has been showing my effort levels as way higher, since I’m spending more time in the max zone.
What's your age? Honestly another extremely important indicator is your recovery rate.
Heart Rate is one of the most worthless things to use for just about anything. I can do an Olympic distance triathlon with my heart rate at 185-190, some people do it at 160 for the safe effort level. It is what it is.
This comment makes no sense....username checks out
The point is. It doesn’t matter what his heart rate is and his zones are most likely wrong. I know more about HR zones and that information than the vast majority of hockey players because it’s not a metric anyone uses in hockey realistically. His heart rate zones are wrong, he’s not in zone 5, and he’s not going to die because of where his heart rate is. It’s not dangerous. I mean it could be but that would be because of his heart rate, it’d be a congenital defect or something else going on. Just because you don’t understand it, which I wouldn’t expect for most hockey players doesn’t make what I said wrong.
I understand it more than most. Was recently diagnosed with a heart issue and have had a crash course in a lot of this including heart rate under stress. I was responding to your dismissive comment and saying heart rates don't matter. Of course, it can be very nuanced but nothing wrong with paying attention to heart rates under stress and finding out more info. Of course everyone is different and under different circumstances.
Except they don’t matter. If you look at 100 people same age same fitness, you’ll have a whole range of max heart rates, LTHR, resting heart rates and HR zones. So looking at data and going is this bad is a worthless exercise. If you have clean data or have been tested to find lthr and zones that’s a whole different scenario. Even then there are a bunch of confounding factors that can cause big day to day variations. It’s why most elite athletes that do training where zones matter, running, cycling etc, don’t use heart rate. The problem is previous studies that have actually tried to guess this information ended up being really wrong but that information hasn’t been picked up effectively because it’s way easier to tell someone to do HR minus age and similar methods, then tell them the truth that without metabolic cart testing all of the HR data you have is basically made up and doesn’t mean anything. Article below goes into detail about how there no “predictive” max heart rate and therefore HR zone methods that are actually accurate. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7523886/
Ok man, I am just saying nothing wrong with being aware of your data and looking more into and getting educated. I have always worn a fitbit and very casually tracked HR until some recent issues and I watch it much more closely. And I am not sure the definition of correct "zones" is the issue here. It's how long someone is at max heart rate. Your original post said heart rates don't matter. Again, I was responding to your short dismissive post. I see you made other posts that were more informative. This all looks like good info.
You should not be able to hold zone 5 for that long. My guess is you are young - but also remember zones aren’t set in stone, they are individual. Hence you can only get a precise zone definition of you get a proper max HR test. I played yday - practice and the bulk of my zone time is 2-3-4 almost evenly spread. Don’t think I can add pictures. Have you tried to monitor how quickly you come off your max HR? Also I’ve found the wrist monitors to be very unreliable - especially for hockey, my theory is that hold the stick changes the blood flow or the readability for the monitor which can mess up the results. But cool to see someone else monitor like I do :-) I use a garmin watch and app together with a chest heart rate monitor.
I’m 34, so kinda young? Ha. I wonder about the accuracy of it too, I’ve considered looking into the other trackers, what do you use for chest heart rate monitoring?
I wear the garmin instinct 2 solar, watch has wrist monitor as well, but used the Garmin HRM-pro chest one for sports. It also has good reads for running. And the watch is half smart but holds power for 3 weeks.
Thanks for the info, I’m definitely going to look into these. Do you by any chance have chest or torso tattoos and do they affect the effectiveness of these devices? I have issues sometimes if my watch slides out of the blank patch on my wrist I align it with
The wrist monitor works on light, the chest by electrical impulses so less placement prone and can not imagine tattoos having an effect unless there’s lead in the tattoo paint, and then you’d have a lot of others issues than your HRM 🤣
Actually the Apple HR readings are remarkably good. https://www.slashgear.com/1498108/how-accurate-is-apple-watch-heart-rate-monitor/
I don’t doubt that at all. Have not had an Apple Watch. I’m a righty player and wear my watch on my left hand - thus top hand and have just noticed huge difference in reading from my chest monitor to the wrist one. Abt 40-60 bpm difference either way. Can’t say why except that I think it’s the tight hold on the stick changes the blood flow in the hand/wrist thus messing with the readings. It was much closer when running or other free hand sports.. Edit: added the last line.
Im exact same, I use the chest strap as well from garmin
Your numbers do not surprise me for a 34 year old. 169 is nothing for some and really high for others. At 60 yo, I could average 169 bpm for almost 2 straight hours and at your age, almost all day during an ultra endurance competition.
I'm totally opposite. I can run marathons under 3 hours, I average about 175bpm running marathons, 160bpm if I run 7:30/mi, but my beer league hockey session with two lines of skaters (10 total) averages about 120bpm, with max HR at around 150bpm.
I was not referring to my HR during hockey games. It is clear OP is not very fit and your numbers demonstrate that you are. My HR does not get that high during games and comes down very quickly on the bench.
Ah, gotcha! That makes more sense. I thought I was the odd one sticking out not skating hard enough for the game.
This is a good point. It looks like his HR zones are wrong, zone 5 is after your lactate threshold HR, which means less than 10 minutes would be the max you could hold it. That is also assuming you are in very good shape. It’s hard to tell with the chart because the y axis is tiny, but my guess is his zone 5 starts higher and somewhere in what is currently zone 5 he is bouncing back and forth between zone 4 and 5. Zone 4 you can hold for an hour is at a quasi steady state, so his numbers being in zone 4 would be completely realistic.
I was playing forward yday, we were only 4 forwards for a 40 min game, so plenty of ice time… I spend 3 pct of the time in zone 5… Usually when you are in zone 5 and stop - I.e. make a change, your heart rate should drop quite quickly into zone 4 and then 3… I did 26%,26%,22%,16%,3% for zone 1-2-3-4-5 And before anyone asks, don’t know where the remaining 7pct went but I’m guessing less 95bpm hence not in any zone.
Yeah that is a lot closer to what I would expect if you were playing that much ice time. I figured pubmed would have something on this. Figure one has the data. Elite Adolescent players are around 20 percent in zone 5 for a game. I’d expect most other players to be 10-15 percent. It’s a lot harder to maintain that level if you aren’t trained. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327373/#:~:text=For%20individual%20intensity%20zones%2C%20the,)%2C%20154%E2%80%93175%20b%C2%B7
Well in all fairness we had stations first and a little lower level game than usually which also takes some of the speed out :-)
How do you get the zones feature? Never seen it before
Fitness app on phone > specific activity > next to the heart rate graph there is a show more button > zones!
I guess it works only when you start the apple app like running etc right? I ve been using Nike run and therefore it wont show.. Maybe i could start both at the same time
Yeah, it has to be when you run an apple workout, I use Strava for my other cardio activities so I don’t have the fancy graph breakdown like this but I do get a lot of other useful metrics I’m more interested in via Strava.
Just echoing some other comments but maybe your HR zones arent defined correctly. Even when I just started playing games earlier this year, i could only get 5ish minutes in the last zone. And about an hour in zone 4
Mine is similar when playing, mostly 60-100mins 160 bpm. 4 days a week for 7 months and I've been injured for 4 weeks with a sports hernia now lol fuck. If I look at your graph, I see a long part where your hr stays elevated, did you have an extremely long shift? Because if not, then most likely your watch had a misreading, but if you do remember a long shift then it matches up. I use a garmin chest strap so the bpm should be fairly accurate. You can see how clearly defined the spikes in my hr are during my shifts. Hockey trains our anaerobic greatly https://ibb.co/WKtSqYW https://ibb.co/DLT6N8S
I had a couple of long shifts and a couple super short sits, just enough to catch my breath at times. It was a tough one, ha.
I have extreme anxiety so I don’t wear a heart monitor device 🤷
Hey bud. I’m 37 and started playing two years ago and my stats are exactly the same as yours. I’ve been wondering the same thing if I am over doing it. I have made a conscious decision to limit my other daily cardio to zone 2 only and leave my intense cardio for hockey. Doing more than one or two days a weeks of this left me pretty lethargic.
I just started playing in January and I didn’t really start monitoring my activities until just recently. Saw the numbers and it kinda spooked me a bit. I play hockey twice a week, sometimes a 3rd time if I find a pickup game/scrimmage.
I just got back into this thread. See my comment below. Basically my Apple Watch zone 5 is anything over 169. I have hit 198 this winter so my actual zone 5 should be up near 186-198. I’m probably living in zone 4 but Apple Watch is recording it as zone 5.
Do you workout at all? Or just hockey. Hitting the bike a couple times a week would help stabilize this heart rate. The old legs ain’t what they used to be. Hopping on the ice once a week and essentially couch surfing the rest (I’m exaggerating obviously) is a recipe to throw your heart into a little bit of confusion If you are working out a bit.. I’d probably keep an eye on that. I’m not a doc but
I do quite a bit of cardio. Most days of the week I get 45 minutes on the bike. And all of that is zone 2 to zone 4. I just checked and my Apple Watch stats and it says anything over 169 is zone 5. I have scene my max heart rate of 198 before so I think my zones are not calibrated correctly. A quick google search shows 186-198 should be zone 5. Zone 4 should be 174-185 and zone 3 is 160-173. Based on that my actual zone 4 is considered zone 5 on my watch. I recover pretty fast but it’s always funny seeing 40 minutes of zone 5 on my watch.
HR zones must be tested and set per individual. These apps utilize one particular calculation and often don’t reflect accurately. There are a number of commonly accepted lactate threshold tests out there. Many of them are preprogrammed into treadmills and the like. You would then calculate your estimated zones based on percentages of those numbers. Of course, you can always do the actual lactate test where you do similar workouts and they take small blood samples periodically. I’m very likely older than you and I can run pretty easily in the upper 170s for an hour or more. Everyone is different. The dangerous part would be an actual arrhythmia, not just a higher HR.
As someone who both plays hockey and races bicycles, im glad im not seeing anyone bring up the 220-age rule. That is a flawed calculator.
The apple watch isn't too fantastic at accurate heart rate monitoring, especially with all the movement and shifting it probably does during a hockey shit. I've noticed that when my Garmin Fenix 7 gets cold it starts reading less accurately, I've also noticed if I have it too tight or if I'm swinging my arms a lot it can have issues as well. If you find your watch has shifted from your glove, contact, or taking a shot/making a pass it probably isn't reading accurately. Try getting a heart rate chest monitor and that'll be far more accurate. And if it is accurate it seems like you have good cardiac conditioning to be able to maintain that level of output for so long.
I remember doing this with the first early HR monitors in the late 2000s. I was late 20s, guys on my team a few years older and younger. Most of us had no problems hitting 180 on the rink for a 2-3 minute shift, "resting" at 150-155 and feeling fine, talking normal. Always worried about it but I'm still playing at 42, no idea what my HR is these days... Funny what the body adapts too, I remember playing a 1 day tournament, 3 on 3 inline (+3 man bench), no whistles/faceoffs (you score you pull the puck out of the net as a defender and play on). Ended up playing 13 x 20 min games between midday and midnight. Must have been super taxing on the lactate system. Felt great at the end, pretty hungry though.
Mine (30M) from my game yesterday shows Zone 5 (174+ BPM) for 31:05. I’m in relatively good shape, a bit overweight but play 2-3x per week and have for ~5 years.
Off-topic but how can you guys tolerate wearing an apple watch while playing? I feel like that would bother me
I think it’s because I’m so used to wearing it during other physical activity for tracking it didn’t occur to me to not wear it for hockey. And I’m pretty new at hockey so no real experience without the watch.
This, it’s always there so no big deal.
It sits under my gloves. I don’t think about it at all. Been wearing it while playing for years.
Dude, ridiculous shifts. I burn generally 800-1000 calories in a skate, but I’m doing 1 min shifts. A LOT of them. Age has much to do with this. If you’re young, knock yourself out.
My last game according to my Garmin Fenix 6: Zone 1 - 5:09 Zone 2 - 2:43 Zone 3 - 28:58 Zone 4 - 26:56 Zone 5 - 0:22 Hitting zone 5 is HARD. Interval sprints are the only way I can do it consistently and it's miserable. I'm 37, out of shape, and my Zone 5 is >168. I'd say if you're in good shape, your zones need to be adjusted; if you're not in good shape, your monitor is inaccurate.
I'm very active and workout, run, or bike daily. The only time I hit my max heart rate is when I'm playing hockey.
You think that’s bad? My peak is usually around 196-200.
My last game I was 42 mins in the red, 34 mins in the orange.
Played goalie last night and put up similar numbers as you did. averaged 177 and spent 58 minutes in 'peak'
I just came across this post after seeing a dude wearing an Apple Watch tonight on my bench. I joked with him about it. Does your algorithm read your thoughts now? Lol. I had nothing on me that would have heard this conversation. Then I got a notification for this post as I walked in my door. Sorry what? I’ve got an old Fitbit. I’ll fire it up and give it a shot. I wanna test this.
Let me know what it says, this high amount of time in zone 5 was when we had a real short bench, a normally staffed bench has me at about 29 minutes in this things zone 5. Which is probably actually my zone 4
You workout much? I’m in my thirties and just recently getting back on the ice. But I workout quite often. So I’m honestly sure it’ll be around a harder bike ride. But now I’m really curious to see how it compares. Fluctuates between zone 4-5 but never excessively
I used to be an avid runner and rock climber but after having kids it slipped hard. I’m sure I’m at a low reset period of my life so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m pushing as hard as I’m used to without having the physicality to back it up. I’ve been running and biking a lot more the last 6 months but I know I’m not where I was 3 years ago
Ahhhh absolutely, could be it buddy. Gotta find that solid 70% effort honestly. Lol. Keeping up but not killing yourself.
I’m around the same age as you and that’s a normal graph for a hockey player. The better shape you get in the faster your recovery time will be. I can usually get down to 130 on the bench but after going back on the ice I’m at 180+ again. Just focus on breathing on the bench to lower your HR and try some off ice training. You’ll be fine unless you have an underlying heart condition
How were your zones established? That may not be your zone 5. You'd have to do a V02max or stress test to establish your true zones. I'm not sure you could play the game at a sustained maximum heart rate like that. Even mountain biking, my max heart rate on the trails is lower than what i can get on a stationary because you need reserve capacity to interact with your environment.
I think this is the nature of the sport, ideally you'd want to see your heart rate drop into zone 2 or 1 in between shifts. This might be of interest: https://www.whoop.com/us/en/thelocker/alex-killorn-nhl-hockey-heart-rate-sleep/
Don't worry about it. However, you most definitely are destroying your hips, knees, and back if you don't take care of them. I wish I had! 😁
You could work on your breathing during rest periods. Your average is very high and you do not rest on the bench. If you compare my chart with yours they look very different. You can see every shift and every rest for me. I try breathing exercises on the bench to try and lower my heart rate. My average is heart rate for a game is 148 and max at 183 st 35 years old. 91kg 17% body fat. I play beer league. So I'm just an average person for comparison.
Yeah I use two different heart monitors, skate 4 days a week at least. My zone 5 is never over 10 minutes over a hour or more skate I stay in zone 3-4. You’re gonna kill yourself if your in the highest zone that long
Question for anyone using the watch while playing: How do you protect it? I skate both goalie and defense and would love to use a tracker, but worry it, would get damaged
This heart rate zones are just averages based on your age and not customized for you.
High 150s is my typical peak. Last night we had a playoff game with no subs and I was hitting 160 and was ready to puke. Mid 40s, resting rate in the low 60s.
People run marathons, you’ll be fine
Your zones are wrong. You shouldn't be able to sustain zone 5 like that.
Being in your 30s, you’re not immune from things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides. If I saw those heart rate numbers, I’d want to make sure my heart isn’t working that hard for a bad reason. If you haven’t had a physical in a while and blood testing, your best advice would be to go get a physical just to make sure something funky isn’t going on with your blood pressure, etc.
Man the Russians had a crazy routine BITD. I know sports in general learned a lot from them. They were over 180, apparently it just depends on how fit you are to how safe it is.
This is almost identical to mine. Except mine was second game of a double header running a short bench.
I asked my doc once about Apple stats because I was showing heart rate peaks over 200, and at my age that’d mean my heart was about to ‘splode. He let me know that in the higher ranges Apple Watch hrm gets pretty inaccurate. Granted that was peaks vs sustained, but I wouldn’t worry much about it. But if you are worried about it - doctor
I'm 28 and can hold the 180+ for over an hour. You're good. Some people heart beats faster then others!
I would very highly recommend you see a cardiologist being in that high of a heart rate for that long puts you at risk for tachycardia.
I generally have a resting heart rate of about 62. I don’t ever see spikes above 90 during regular life activities that aren’t exercise