Quote Originally Posted by Andrea View Post
Maybe for you, but my average HR for a 4 mile time trial is 191. My max is 205, and I'm 26 years old.
Andrea, I'm not going by a chart. I'm going by what I "honestly feel" and the 190 is a ballpark figure. So, I think your 191 is perfect. If the goal is to increase stroke volume, which is what it really should be, then consistently getting your HR super high is not necessarily the way to do it.

I don't use a heart rate monitor because I personally feel that HR training is bunk, but that's just my personal opinion. I often climb at my "max" of 190 (I'll manually check my heart rate once in a while, especially if it feels really high and hard). I know I could go above it, but I don't feel it is necessary, and it could even become problematic. I stop and drink when my HR gets "too high." The heart is not the only muscle you're training. If your HR is getting that high, then it's your other muscles that are begging for mercy, not the heart. Slow down. Do an an endurance workout. Don't punish your heart because other muscles are undertrained. Your legs don't have to hurt to be working anaerobically.

For me, I prefer to keep my HR in the 160-180 zone. That is just where I am when I ride. If I go above that, then that is an indicator that I need to reassess my training and come at it from a different angle. Usually, that angle is endurance training. (Long, long, slow, hill climbs.) As stated before, I don't always measure, but I go by how I feel.

The reason why I thought of an arrhythmia is because I've seen a lot of them on peripheral vascular and carotid ultrasounds. They're not uncommon. You'd have a few normal beats, then a quick beat, then a few seconds of no beat. Something like that might throw the Garmin off. That's why an EKG may be a good idea. Get a baseline to know where you're at. It could be something as serious as a septal defect, or it could be nothing at all. Another issue is that it might not be your "true" max (I'm talking about the 212 and 225 HRs thrown out there), but tachycardia for whatever reason.

I've spent a lot of time with sick people, so I'm just cautious.