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!"

[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!