Sorry - another HR question

meanredspider

The highest HR I've ever recorded doing anything is 183bpm.

I've been off the bike for a couple of weeks after some reasonably intensive cycling this year. My resting HR has come down from around 60 to 55 during this year.

Went out for a 30mile RT, 18mph, ride today and my HR seemed higher than normal - averaging 174bpm and peaking at 186bpm though I was hardly short of breath at any point and felt fine (at 179bpm I was easiliy able to say my name and address in one go).

Is this just a sign of being rested? I don't think it was an HRM glitch (it was pretty consistent - no funny spikes). Would I expect my MHR go up as I get fitter?

Details here http://connect.garmin.com/activity/74006931 (there was a strong head/tail wind blowing right along the firth - hence the average for the first 15 miles was 23mph)

Any thoughts?

mick1355

Hi Mean,
everyone's Hr responses are different depending on their level of fitness, and to be honest my experience is limited, when you say the highest HR you've recorded, was that a maximal effort to establish your maximum or just what you have recorded during normal rides? My max was 202, now 195 and at 185 I can just about manage my name and only sustain that for approx 4mins. May be worth while exhausting yourself on a short maximal effort to confirm your max HR, that would be a good starting place.


Mick

danowat

MHR doesn't go up, it does go down with age (around 1bpm per year).

meanredspider

mick1355 wrote:

Hi Mean,
everyone's Hr responses are different depending on their level of fitness, and to be honest my experience is limited, when you say the highest HR you've recorded, was that a maximal effort to establish your maximum or just what you have recorded during normal rides? My max was 202, now 195 and at 185 I can just about manage my name and only sustain that for approx 4mins. May be worth while exhausting yourself on a short maximal effort to confirm your max HR, that would be a good starting place.


Mick

Not on a bike but running uphill really hard (so my lungs wanted to come out) and 2-3 years back at that. I'd understood that running normally generated higher MHRs due to the number of muscles involved. Being the highest I'd ever recorded, it was my all-activity MHR - until today.

Of course, it might not have been the maximal MHR but it certainly felt like it at the time. What I'm never sure about is how fatigue influences HR. On longer rides my HR degrades as I fatigue.

As you suggest, I might need to do a self-destruct uphill sprint to see what happens (and have one of my doctor neighbours in attendance just in case...).

I've just never so readily seen the sort of numbers I was seeing today. HR hardly fell into the 160s in the whole 1h40m

meanredspider

danowat wrote:

MHR doesn't go up, it does go down with age (around 1bpm per year).

Do you know why?

meanredspider

And why is MHR activity-specific?

mick1355

Well, if you are discounting any HR monitor and your legs still had some sensation left in them, IF you had a MHR of 200+ and a ft of 175+ then a steady tempo ride of 165-170 would be reasonable (someone will soon tell me if it's not) in my opinion, but you don't. Do you know you lactate threshold/functional threshold (recently)?
Regarding MHR specific training and predominantly (rightly or wrongly) base my workouts around my lactate/functional threshold as opposed MHR.

meanredspider

mick1355 wrote:

Do you know you lactate threshold/functional threshold (recently)?.

Nope - never did - not sure (without peeking at the definitions thread) if I could even define them.

mick1355

Ok, well short of testing at the lab and getting your finger pricked for blood every 4 mins, you can find your threshold (roughly) by doing 30 mins at your 10m tt pace (or a pace you can sustain maximally for 30 mins, at the end take your average HR for the last 20 mins, thats roughly your lactate threshold, average HR over the whole 30 mins is your functional threshold (roughly), apparently the more often you try this, the more accurate it is.
However i found the lab test best.

danowat

meanredspider wrote:

danowat wrote:

MHR doesn't go up, it does go down with age (around 1bpm per year).

Do you know why?

Why it doesn't go up, or why it goes down with age?

It doesn't go up because MHR is a physiological thing that is genetic and it what it is.

It goes down with age because the muscle fibres harden with age.

As for "equipment specific" MHR, I don't think thats the correct term, MHR is MHR, the highest your heart will physically beat, its maximum, however, certain forms of exercise make it harder, or easier to get closer to your MHR.

To gain any benifit from HR training, you need to know your TRUE MHR, anything else, even "well I was pushing hard, it must be close" is a guess, and as such makes training to HR a little futile.

meanredspider

danowat wrote:

As for "equipment specific" MHR, I don't think thats the correct term, MHR is MHR, the highest your heart will physically beat, its maximum, however, certain forms of exercise make it harder, or easier to get closer to your MHR.

To gain any benifit from HR training, you need to know your TRUE MHR, anything else, even "well I was pushing hard, it must be close" is a guess, and as such makes training to HR a little futile.

I'd asked the question about the sport-specific bit and was told to use that highest on a bike. I thought 183 was my all-time max (I ran up the peak hill you see in my profile below when I was on a running kick) - certainly the highest I've seen in the last 5 years - before today. Given I'm 46, it also fitted with various calcs too (not that I hold much store by them).

The bit that's confused me is the relative ease with which I've exceeded it today.

But I will try a balls-out banzai assault on that hill (after a few miles warm up) and see what happens.

doyler78

The calcs are rubbish. If you want to know your max you need to test for it and a lab will not always elicit your max either. Some people can perform in a lab, some can't. I seem to be able to hit the same max indoors and outdoors though haven't tested in several years now. That's largely becuase my maxHR doesn't appeared to have moved as I can still get within a few beats in certain situations so I can't say that I agree with the 1 beat loss per year however that does seem to be what most sources online seem to quote. It's just not my experience.

You should set your zones for training on the bike based on your sport specific max becuase the range of resting to max is functionally all that you can achieve on a bike so anything else is irrelevant.

I have a LTHR of 178bpm on a maxHR of 198bpm so your 174bpm on 186bpm max would definitely suggest to me that you are underestimating your max and by some margin.

meanredspider

doyler78 wrote:

The calcs are rubbish. ........


I have a LTHR of 178bpm on a maxHR of 198bpm so your 174bpm on 186bpm max would definitely suggest to me that you are underestimating your max and by some margin.

Yup - I've never used the calcs - though it does give you some confidence when your perceived MHR is in the same postcode as the calc.

I'm sure, based upon my experience today, that 186 isn't my true max. It was a relatively gentle hill with a trailing wind - I wasn't attacking it and I was barely short of breath.. I knew that I had about 10 more miles almost dead-straight into a blistering wind so I was holding back.

mick1355

Well mean I think that say's it all, if you felt you were holding back, into a head wind with 10 mile to go and felt good.........I think you were a good way from your MSHR, i agree with Doyler, my lth is at 165bpm and I max at 195, and when I max I am useless for 60-90 seconds after......sounds you were no where near that state.

mick1355

MHR not MSHR (silly Mick)

meanredspider

mick1355 wrote:

Well mean I think that say's it all, if you felt you were holding back, into a head wind with 10 mile to go and felt good.........I think you were a good way from your MSHR, i agree with Doyler, my lth is at 165bpm and I max at 195, and when I max I am useless for 60-90 seconds after......sounds you were no where near that state.

Absolutely - I'm just surprised that I've come nowhere close to this HR on a bike before - including climbing up to the Crow Road (850ft continuous climb) a couple of weeks back when I was puffing rather and fuelled with adrenaline because my son was having a 10-hour operation to remove a large proportion of the LH-side of his pelvis, nuked to kill a tumour, and put back in. I hit 181bpm.

ut_och_cykla

meanredspider wrote:

danowat wrote:

MHR doesn't go up, it does go down with age (around 1bpm per year).

Do you know why?

Son't know but would guess its to do with geral lack of elasticity in body tissues as you get older

ut_och_cykla

meanredspider wrote:

And why is MHR activity-specific?

My understanding is that it is activity specific to varying degrees in different individuals and usually not more than 10 beats.
Most effect comes from gravity - differences between running - very upright and swimming - horisontal are usually the largest. Check out the effect on a turbo - plod along at given speed/watts - sitting upright , go onto drops or vice versa....

meanredspider

ut_och_cykla wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

And why is MHR activity-specific?

My understanding is that it is activity specific to varying degrees in different individuals and usually not more than 10 beats.
Most effect comes from gravity - differences between running - very upright and swimming - horisontal are usually the largest. Check out the effect on a turbo - plod along at given speed/watts - sitting upright , go onto drops or vice versa....

Sound plausible but my experience is that running (and standing on a climb) drives HR up though the heart is having to deliver more pressure which, in mechanical displacement pumps, tends to slow them down.

Should I stand in the climb to generate my cycling MHR? Seems like I should.

danowat

My MHR is 183, the highest I've ever reaching running (in a 5k race) was 182, the highest cycling was 181 (during a recent 10mile TT), so for me, activity specific (in regards to running and cycling) is a negligable difference.

ut_och_cykla

meanredspider wrote:

ut_och_cykla wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

And why is MHR activity-specific?

My understanding is that it is activity specific to varying degrees in different individuals and usually not more than 10 beats.
Most effect comes from gravity - differences between running - very upright and swimming - horisontal are usually the largest. Check out the effect on a turbo - plod along at given speed/watts - sitting upright , go onto drops or vice versa....

Sound plausible but my experience is that running (and standing on a climb) drives HR up though the heart is having to deliver more pressure which, in mechanical displacement pumps, tends to slow them down.

Should I stand in the climb to generate my cycling MHR? Seems like I should.

I think (ie can't quite remember) that the HR is steered mostly by neck receptors (carotid veins & artery) and return to heart. Blood delivery is a combination of HR and volume. The only way your heart can deliver more in the short term is beat faster. But it could be yo're not so gravity sensitive (depends on other/previuos training).
personally I wouldn't stand, the incline makes you slightly more upright and most of your subsequent traing will be seated (I assume)
Increase in heart volume is what we aim to achieve by training - it leads to Resting HR drop, And lower HR for same level of work. The adaptation is significanly stimulated by rises in blood pressure achieved at high levels of effort (over 90% of max)