What IS maximum heart rate?

[Mr. Bloom]

I know it's a silly question...but now that I have the Garmin 305, I can measure my heart rate.

So, I'm a 44 year old male...which means my Maximum Heart Rate should be about 175 bpm. I'm 5'7" and weigh about 170 (I think my ideal weight is about 155)

But, while my average is about 155 on a ride, my peaks (generally on hills) are in the 180 to 185 range. Riding into the wind, I'm sustained at >175 for extende periods.

So,

Am I putting my health in jeopardy by exceeding my Max Rate?
What are the implications of doing this?
Are there any benefits?
Does this simply define a limit where my body will be incapable of "pushing any harder"


While at these high rates, I've not felt ill (although I'm breathing quite hard from the climb)...no lightheadedness, chest pain, or anything negative like that....

[Grog]

So, I'm a 44 year old male...which means my Maximum Heart Rate should be about 175 bpm. I'm 5'7" and weigh about 170 (I think my ideal weight is about 155)


Your concerns are very common, I'm sure you'll find many threads on this forum on the same topic. (A good keyword for searching for such threads would be "220"...)

I'm a 29yo woman, my theoretical max HR according to the lame 220-age equation should be 191. With training, I'm now able to reach 200 running up hills (VERY HARD running, I must add), and more than that on the bike (205). Without training my HR was just very high anyway, it's just that now my legs are strong enough to follow my heart. :)

I can sustain 185 for about an hour on the run, not sure about the bike. It's not quite pleasant, but it's possible.



So,
[LIST]
Am I putting my health in jeopardy by exceeding my Max Rate?


I do not think so, but if such efforts are a relatively new thing to you, you might want to talk about it with your doctor, and if you have any risk factor for heart issues she might want to have you take some tests. However if you've done this for a while now, I wouldn't loose sleep over it, especially if you feel no pain.



What are the implications of doing this?
Are there any benefits?


My limited understanding is that if you work your heart harder, and then REST it (important), then it's going to improve in its capacity to work under effort. The REST part is important. That's what intervals training (which hills can be considered as) work so well.

My first year of cycling, I made a chart from my bikejournal data with my heart rate and average speed. I was pleased to see that with time my heart rate was remaining constant for a higher speed. In other words, for the same cardiovascular effort, I was going faster*. I guess that's what training is for.

NOW
Your mileage may vary. We have a family friend who is thin (but not unhealthy-thin), who has ran dozen of marathons, and who all of a sudden in his late-40s/early-50s, on a Sunday morning long run (30km), found himself having a heart attack. Turns out he had an undiagnosed heart condition. Now the guy is a sports medicine doctor, so he recognized what was going on and got himself into the hospital where he got a quadruple bypass. His doctor's take on this was that if he hadn't been so fit he probably would not have survived this, NOT that the running caused the problem.

So if you have any reason to suspect anything could be wrong with your arteries or heart, it's certainly safe to share your concerns with a specialist. However, a higher-than-predicted heart is more than normal, especially since the 220-age formula has been shown to be quite inaccurate.

Enjoy!

[PinkBike]

i agree with grog - the 220 minus age calculation is inaccurate. i go over 100% quite often when climbing and i feel like i could even work a little harder. use it as a guide, dont sweat it. its just a number. i think you already knew that.

[LBTC]

Once again the ladies are right. The estimated heartrate is not your specific heartrate, and may not even be close.

I have an athletic friend who has told me that if I want to determine my true max heart rate on the bike, that I need to, after a good warm up, ride up a steady but not too steep incline at max effort until I puke. I have not tried this, but it seems logical. There are other ways of calculating this information if you look online.

On my Garmin, I can change the heart rate zones for each activity. Once you have a better idea of your max, you can probably adjust yours too.

H&B
~T~

[Zen]

This is known as the Karvonen Formula (not to be confused with the Kevorkian formula)


220 - (your age) = Max Heart Rate (MaxHR)
MaxHR - (resting heart rate) = Heart Rate Reserve (HRR)
HRR x 85% = training range %
training range % + RHR = high end of your THR zone

This example shows the high end of a THR for a 35 year old person with a resting heart rate of 60 bpm:

220 - 35 = 185
185 - 60 = 125
125 x 85%= 106.25
106.25 + 60 = 166 beats per minute

[SouthernBelle]

Here's a decent wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate

As you get in better condition, & absent heart problems, the age method gets more misleading as you get older. I'm at an age where if I went by that, and tried to keep my rate down to say 80%, I would often have to quit on hills.

[Mr. Bloom]

Great feedback...Thanks.

I guess as they say on Monty Python..."I'm not dead yet!":D

[Veronica]

That's a reasonable formula and a good place to start :) Although it puts my top end about twenty beats lower than it really is and below the testing I had done a couple of years ago at the U C Davis Sports Medicine Clinic.

I wonder if it is less accurate for people with low resting pulses.

V.

[indysteel]

I'm no expert on this, but I'd throw out the following tidbits of information that I've picked up from my own reading on the subject. Your max heartrate is genetically determined. In other words, it is what it is. It goes down a bit as you age, but if you're in good shape and train regularly, the decrease will likely be slight. The various methods of estimating your max HR are all rough at best. If you really want to know what it is, you must have it tested in a controlled environment, say at your gym, or do a field test. Even then, however, factors such as fatigue and hydration can affect your results. Aerobic training will not increase your max heart rate. What it will do is change your level of perceived exertion and allow to trainer harder and longer--assuming you have no underlying cardiac or pulminary problems.

I bought an HRM last year and have seen it go as high as 220 during a climb. This struck me as really high and a number of people--including some instructors at my gym--made the inaccurate comment that I must be in good shape. My shape, I explained, had nothing to do with it. In any event, at one point, I had plans to do a max heartrate test at my gym but after reading enough material suggesting that knowing the precise number isn't necessary for training purposes, I decided to forego it. Instead, I use my level of perceived exertion as a better guide to whether I am in the "zone" that I want to be in. I haven't been wearing my HRM this season but can say that I get far less out of my comfort zone on climbs/sprints than I used to and it takes me less time to recover from a hard effort.

[Andrea]

As a grad student in Exercise & Sport Science, I can assure you that what everyone's said here is true about the inaccuracy of 220-age. That's really only a prediction- if you took everyone in the world and put them through a maximal exercise test, you'd most often find that they're within 5 or so BPM of 220-age.

When you start dealing with people who aren't "normal" is when that formula gets thrown out the window. Athletes and others who choose to maintain a higher fitness level than their sedentary counterparts will not experience the same decline in maximum heart rate as other people- it IS going to go down as you get older, but the rate of decline just isn't as fast.

The best way to measure what your max heart rate really is is to go to an exercise testing lab. Typically, in our human performance lab at University of Memphis, we'll put someone on a treadmill and perform a maximal exercise test. During the test, we measure VO2max, lactate threshold, and use an EKG to monitor heartrate. You can have a maximal test performed at a doctor's office or cardiac clinic, but they'll usually only gather EKG information in that type of setting (VO2max and lactate threshold are more along the lines of performance-related data rather than health related).

This information is most useful to people who want to form a detailed training program and/or want to monitor how their fitness changes in resonse to a training program.

[GLC1968]

Lots of interesting information posted here!

I'd like to point out one additional piece of info... While your max HR will not change with increased fitness, your resting HR can be lowered AND the speed at which your HR recovers from exertion can be improved.

When I first started HR training (ages ago...long before I picked up cycling), I was getting frustrated because while everyone else I knew frequently over-shot their estimated max's, I couldn't even come close. I frequently could barely maintain in my 75% target range. I thought there was something wrong with me! Turns out, 220-age is pretty close to spot on for me. BUT, except when biking, it is very, very difficult for me to get my HR into my training zones. I have a resting rate in the 40's, so apparently, I have a pretty strong heart that due to body issues (bad feet), I was unable to effectively challenge it. This is the primary reason I picked up cycling.


Those with more knowledge about this subject than me...I have a question. Is there a disadvantage to having a smaller workable 'window' than most? If my resting is say 44 and my max is 181, then that only leaves me with 137 beats to work with. Many people have much larger ranges (say 55 to 215 = 160). Is there an advantage either way? (not that I can really change this...I'm just curious)

[Zen]

As long as mine continues to beat I'm satisfied.

[indysteel]

The best way to measure what your max heart rate really is is to go to an exercise testing lab. Typically, in our human performance lab at University of Memphis, we'll put someone on a treadmill and perform a maximal exercise test. During the test, we measure VO2max, lactate threshold, and use an EKG to monitor heartrate. You can have a maximal test performed at a doctor's office or cardiac clinic, but they'll usually only gather EKG information in that type of setting (VO2max and lactate threshold are more along the lines of performance-related data rather than health related).

Andrea, perhaps you can answer this, too. I've read a number of times that your max heartrate varies from sport to sport. Is that true and if it is, how then do you account for that when doing a lab test if, say, you want to know what your max HR for cycling is?

Thanks,

K-

[Andrea]

Your max values for cycling (both HR and VO2max) tend to be approximately 85% of what you see if you're running. That's because cycling involves slightly fewer muscles than running, and, with more resistance on the pedals, will make you accumulate lactic acid faster than if you're running.

Usually, the better cyclist you are, the closer you can get to your running maxes, but it's rare to be able to achieve a true max on a bike. Ideally, you'd do a max test running and follow it up with a max test on a stationary bike (provided the lab has a stationary bike that's got somewhat of a road bike geometry rather than an upright one) within 5-10 days of each other so you could get your true max as well as your functional capacity for your sport.

If you have a small working "window" for heartrate, then you'd benefit from lactate threshold testing (everyone can, actually). That way, you can focus some of your training sessions on pushing that level up to a higher percentage of your maximum work capacity.

[Grog]

Your max values for cycling (both HR and VO2max) tend to be approximately 85% of what you see if you're running. That's because cycling involves slightly fewer muscles than running, and, with more resistance on the pedals, will make you accumulate lactic acid faster than if you're running.

That's funny, it's been the other way for me. It took me a long time before I could reach up to 200 running, whereas it happens to me all the time when cycling.

[gnat23]

Hah! Like your new toy, huh?

After a particularly hilly climbing day, I downloaded my numbers and freaked out at the 223 max it registered. I thought maybe it was a fluke from it moving around on my skin or something, but I saw the ramp up to 223 and the ramp back down. Nope, I hit it fair and square.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "I think I should either should be dead or 8 years old!"

-- gnat!

[Mr. Bloom]

Yep...I LOVE that new toy. I no longer have Gadget Envy! The Garmon 305 is uber cool!

[GLC1968]

If you have a small working "window" for heartrate, then you'd benefit from lactate threshold testing (everyone can, actually). That way, you can focus some of your training sessions on pushing that level up to a higher percentage of your maximum work capacity.

Thanks, Andrea!

That is kind of what I thought. I've had some estimates done (using a treadmill) and my lactate threshold came out pretty close to my max already. The trainer I worked with said this was highly unusual except in elite athletes or in those who are genetically gifted for CV capacity. I definitely don't fall into the first category, but I'm going to consider real testing before I feel comfortable actually placing myself in the second group! ;)