% of Max Heart Rate

CyclingBantam

Just been checking on my Garmin and it seems that I spend the majority of my time on my commute riding between 90 - 100% of my max heart rate. By doing this am I limiting the fitness benefit I am getting from my commute? Should I be taking it easier and trying to do more intervals? This will bring my trip speed down but will it help in the long run? Is there any books/websites anyone can reccoend that would help e work out a training plan I can build in to my commute? I'm not trining for anything in particulare, more just a case of getting fitter and quicker in general.

My comute is between 9 and 13 miles and full of short steep hills (West Yorks, Halifax area)

Also, re. my max heart rate, I'm 26, reasonable fitness and believe my max HR to be approx 197. I realise this might be a little out but I would have only thought by a couple of beats here and there!

Thanks

Ben

richa

100% Max HR on your commute :shock:

How did you calculate/measure your 197 max?

CyclingBantam

RichA wrote:

100% Max HR on your commute :shock:

How did you calculate/measure your 197 max?

I don't carry stuff in with me. I calculated my Max heart rate by looking at the max it getson my route. I have one 16% hill to go up so I a normally pretty hard at it up there! I am a bit surprised that my heart rate seems to be so high most of the way however I tend to pedal as fast as I can most of the way.

vitesse169

The only way to work in side your HR zones is to do a max test. That is to work progressively harder until you completely blow. Best done on a turbo so you can increase your HR steadily towards max. This will then give you the 100%, then you can work out all the %'s within which to work/train.

Alex_Simmons/RST

BenBlyth wrote:

Just been checking on my Garmin and it seems that I spend the majority of my time on my commute riding between 90 - 100% of my max heart rate.

I doubt it. Your max is more than likely higher than you think it is.

Bhima

I borrowed a HR monitor the other week and was shocked to find that I went about 30 RPM higher when on a gym excercise bike compared to a flat-out uphill 500m sprint on the road. (Using the same HR monitor)

So there's a difference between your flat-out road effort and your theoretical maximum under controlled conditions and it's unlikely you'll hit 100% on the road (from the 2 weeks experience i've had with them).

Maybe it's to do with the fact that your body stays cooler on the road with the wind...

felgen

Theres a few threads about this.... do a search, but AFAIK Max HR is sport specific, so given that you (mainly) use your legs for cyling it will give a different MaxHR than say, swimming or running.

As mentioned you need to do 'the test' and not just subtract your age from 220.