What's the highest heart rate that I can exercise and still be very fresh for work?

Question

Walking and cycling to work can be healthy and can save money. Exercise is even known to improve productivity. Since tiredness affects job performance especially if it's a physical job, it's very important to save our energy. We'll need it for 8 hours.

How can we walk or cycle to work without becoming tired?

The commute can range between 30 and 60 minutes. What's the highest heart rate that we can use and not get tired? If we use zone 1 on the way to work, is it safe for our performance? They say it's so easy that you felt like you didn't ride your bike. If we use the 180 minus age heart rate on the way home, would we be fully recovered by the next morning for work?

If more time is needed for recovery, an alternative might be to exercise heavily only after work on Fridays, and Saturdays.

I'm asking this question because my job is manual labour and friends are concerned that when I bike to work, I get too tired. It requires core strength.

Answer 1

Unfortunately there is no really clean answer to this and it will depend on your personal fitness levels and what type of activity you are naturally (genetically) inclined to. Some people are better sprinters and some people are better endurance runners. There isn't a solid answer as to what activity that will tire you out enough to make it difficult to work.

One indicator you can use is coordination loss after activity. Are your hands steady once you arrive at your workplace? Do you feel that your balance is just as good? If either of those are true then it is unlikely that you are close to a point that the task of getting to work has any effect.

The other way to look at it is that the journey to work is a warm-up to the activity once you get there. One routine that I did was to ride my bike 5 mi. (8 km) to the gym before work and then skip my warm-up when I got there. The ride was brisk but not 100% effort so it would get my muscles ready for that days lift. So I would take the ride/walk in at 60% and treat it as a warm-up.