Is my max hr correct?

bombdogs

Been getting in some serious training over the last few months, but my max heart rate seems to have increased.

Got a polar hr watch for xmas with a hr strap, so I could monitor my max hr and average hr over the course of my training rides, etc.

Used one of those on-line hr zone calculators, which i know are only marginally accurate, but for my age (28) and weigth (13st), plus my resting hr (60), it predicts my max hr will be 191.

Here's my gripe, though, at first I struggled to get going over 179bpm - even climbing really steep hills, last week I managed a max hr while out on my 6am morning 5k run of 196, then on the saturday doing the clubrun during a bit of a sprint for the cafe against one of the younger lads i managed a max hr of 199, but was able to hold it for quite a while before I blew up after about 600metres at full pelt (32mph)

Is it normal for my mx hr to increase with training? And how do i get it up even higher? have read on this site about a few guys getting it up to 220bpm. Is that possible? If so, how?

Alex_Simmons/RST

No











OK, just having some fun.

Who knows? - you are talking about different modalities of training, different methods of getting to a "max effort", different fitness levels, different days, diferent levels of fatigue, different levels of stimulants, don't know if monitor is working correctly or picking up erroneous signals....

Bronzie

I've posted on here before that I can only reach my max (or at least what I think is my max) when I'm quite fit. Certainly can't do it at the minute coming from a winter of slow rides.

Others (Alex Simmons included who knows a lot more about this subject than I do) claim they find it easier to reach their max when unfit.

So maybe, now you are fitter, you are able to push yourself further / harder than previously.

As for reaching 220, your max hr is entirely individual to you, not what someone else can achieve, and besides it's relatively meaningless on its own. More useful is to know how fast your heart is beating relative to YOUR max at any given time when training (ie training zones).

Adamskii

Why would you want to increase your maximum heart rate?

Surely the idea is to increase your power output for a designated constant heart rate.

Or am I missing something!

method

It doesn't go up, if you're seeing higher results it just means you hadn't reached your max before. You need to do a proper ramp test to find what it is.