Maximum heart rate

kingderham

What is the best way to find maximum heart rate?
Age minus a 220 is not very accurate and just running as hard as yu can until exhausted is not a god way to find this ,so i have been told.
I read a article in cycling plus about this and cant remember what month.
I have used the search section and only got heart rate monitors.

Garry H

Surely the only way to really find out is to exercise to exhaustion and then chect out what the highest rate was. Do this a few times over a given paeriod and voila. Or am i missing something??? Mine's around 195 and I'm 38, so the old 220-age would be completely out.

stonehouse

Every calculation I've seen doesn't fit me either. I'm 49, I've verified my HR on 3 different devices at 183 max, don't know if that's good or bad!

dennisn

Go out and warm up for 45 minutes or so. Then start doing 2 or 3 minute sprints at maximum ability with a 2 or 3 minute break between them. After 6 or 8 of these sprints
you will, most likely, have achieved your max HR somewhere along the line. Check your HR monitor after the ride, or during, and see what it says. Bingo max HR.

freehub

I've heard that it's actually 235 minus your age.

Bronzie

freehub wrote:

I've heard that it's actually 235 minus your age.

That's +21 bpm out for me (as opposed to +6 bpm out for 220-age) - both are just guidelines and can't be relied on.

To the OP - here's a couple of suggested max HR tests:
http://www.timetrialtraining.co.uk/S6Ma ... eTests.htm

dennisn

I guess the next question is 'What will you do with this number?". Find 70 or 75%
percent of it or what, and then what???? Not trying to be a smart *ss, just asking
what will you do with these numbers?

Garry H

stonehouse wrote:

Every calculation I've seen doesn't fit me either. I'm 49, I've verified my HR on 3 different devices at 183 max, don't know if that's good or bad!

It's neither, just meaningless by itself. You could have been going 30mph up a 20% incline when you achieved it...

Garry H

dennisn wrote:

I guess the next question is 'What will you do with this number?". Find 70 or 75%
percent of it or what, and then what???? Not trying to be a smart *ss, just asking
what will you do with these numbers?

You should multiply it by ten and the number in pounds is what you should be spending on a bike. Multiply by 17 if you're paying in US Dollars

sampras38

Garry H wrote:

Surely the only way to really find out is to exercise to exhaustion and then chect out what the highest rate was. Do this a few times over a given paeriod and voila. Or am i missing something??? Mine's around 195 and I'm 38, so the old 220-age would be completely out.

Yep, 220 minus your age is about as useful as a blind man on lookout, and it can be as far out as 10-15 beats. There are tests you can do to get close and mine's around 190, but to get a true reading you probably need to get tested in a lab.

dennisn

sampras38 wrote:

Garry H wrote:

Surely the only way to really find out is to exercise to exhaustion and then chect out what the highest rate was. Do this a few times over a given paeriod and voila. Or am i missing something??? Mine's around 195 and I'm 38, so the old 220-age would be completely out.

There are tests you can do to get close and mine's around 190, but to get a true reading you probably need to get tested in a lab.

What do these "tests" involve? Simply exercising until your heart goes no higher??
In that case what would you need a "lab" for????? And if your max HR is 190(derived somehow) what do you think your "true" max reading would be??? Higher / lower?? :? :? :?

sampras38

dennisn wrote:

sampras38 wrote:

Garry H wrote:

Surely the only way to really find out is to exercise to exhaustion and then chect out what the highest rate was. Do this a few times over a given paeriod and voila. Or am i missing something??? Mine's around 195 and I'm 38, so the old 220-age would be completely out.

There are tests you can do to get close and mine's around 190, but to get a true reading you probably need to get tested in a lab.

What do these "tests" involve? Simply exercising until your heart goes no higher??
In that case what would you need a "lab" for????? And if your max HR is 190(derived somehow) what do you think your "true" max reading would be??? Higher / lower?? :? :? :?

Did I say I was a doctor?

I'm not entirely sure what's involved in the lab tests but I have been reliably informed by a couple of elite athletes that they exist.

My 190 is a fairly rough figure and basically the highest number I have ever seen, and that was only on 2 occasions, one of which was towards the end of a climb I did up the Joux Plane in the Alps. I was riding with a friend and we raced each other to the top, having never done it before. We went a bit crazy as neither wanted to give in, and my garmin got a max reading of 190. The other time was in a similar situation when i was racing a mate up one of the hills in Box Hill, Surrey. other than those 2 times I have never seen a reading that high, no matter how hard I've ridden.

In terms of my MHR it's an estimate, but a pretty accurate one.

Buckled_Rims

stonehouse wrote:

Every calculation I've seen doesn't fit me either. I'm 49, I've verified my HR on 3 different devices at 183 max, don't know if that's good or bad!

I'm 50 and I can't get past 180. I have a single speed MTB/commute and that's the very best to push my heart rate up when I cycle up a steep bank. On the road bike I can't get past 174 bpm.

sampras38

Buckled_Rims wrote:

stonehouse wrote:

Every calculation I've seen doesn't fit me either. I'm 49, I've verified my HR on 3 different devices at 183 max, don't know if that's good or bad!

I'm 50 and I can't get past 180. I have a single speed MTB/commute and that's the very best to push my heart rate up when I cycle up a steep bank. On the road bike I can't get past 174 bpm.

As you get older your MHR will drop though.

LikeUStoleIt

i think the majority of the literature suggests that MHR is not a particularly useful number for training purposes, and so an MHR test is (a) completely horrible because you really have to push way beyond normal training efforts, and (b) unnecessary.

joe friel advocates estbalishing lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR) in his book, and then provides tables to define HR zones based on this number.

the test is not too brutal (?) and the charts are useful for defining training efforts.

blackhands

I'm 67 and my maximum cycling heart rate (MHR) is 182. However, MHR is protocol dependent - so it will be different for running and will depend on how you test for it. I use a 1 watt every 3 seconds ramp on a cycle ergometer in the lab. However, MHR was only an aside and to set training zones I would normally use a CO2 deflection point measured by breath by breath gas analysis.

Alex_Simmons/RST

LikeUStoleIt wrote:

i think the majority of the literature suggests that MHR is not a particularly useful number for training purposes, and so an MHR test is (a) completely horrible because you really have to push way beyond normal training efforts, and (b) unnecessary.

There is nothing wrong with using MHR as an anchor point for establishing training levels, provided you use an established, verified MHR number.

As for training never eliciting MHR (or close enough), I would suggest that such training efforts are not uncommon amongst performance cyclists.

An incremental test to exhaustion is relatively quick and consistent performance test (especially when testing maximal aerobic power) and is often more convenient than a TT for many people.

usual caveats apply for those of age, ill, history of cardio/respiratory illness etc...

John C.

For what it's worth I'm 50 and max at about 200 (got to 201 last summer) and it isn't unusual to see 180+ on big climbs although I do try and keep it below 175. If I keep it to 175 on big hills and 150 for the rest of long rides then I can keep going all day.