Heart Rates Formulas

paulmgreen

I'm a little confused about maximum heart rates.....

Most guides seem to work on max being 220- your age ..... Making mine 171. But during a time trail I can do the whole 10 miles averaging 182 ..... Does that mean I should have exploded in a ball of flames!

I have a Garmin monitor.... So i just want to start to interpret the numbers correctly.......

Quick guides anyone?..

t.m.h.n.e.t

No it means that the forumla is a guide only. The only way to know your exact max hr is to be lab tested.

dw300

paulmgreen wrote:

I'm a little confused about maximum heart rates.....

Most guides seem to work on max being 220- your age ..... Making mine 171. But during a time trail I can do the whole 10 miles averaging 182 ..... Does that mean I should have exploded in a ball of flames!

I have a Garmin monitor.... So i just want to start to interpret the numbers correctly.......

Quick guides anyone?..

Even if you were 10bpm out in your estimate of your max, that's only gona mess your zones up by a couple of BPM. I don't really think it's too much of an issue to get is smack on. Obviously if you calculate it but see higher numbers on an accurate HRM, then use those figures instead.

Working yours out off 182 sounds ok to me as a guide for your zones.

edit .. actually forget that, if you average 182 for 10 miles then you max is probably much higher. I think there are guides to warm you up for an effort that will get you right up near to your max .. i'll have a look.

paulmgreen

Thanks mate

racingcondor

Heart Rate formulas seem to be pretty accurate for me but as others have said they're only a guide.

I'd jump on the turbo, do a 10-15 minute warm up and then something like a tabata interval (google it). If you're doing it right you'll get pretty close you your max and can reset your zones based on that.

dw300

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training#Tabata_method

Use caution doing this if you're not used to working at max intensity. We aren't doctors and don't want you having a heart attack.

paulmgreen

Yes... T.hat wouldn't be wise lol

Tom Dean

Rather than doing Tabata intervals, you could do a max HR test.

Something like: warm up well then build intensity steadily over 10-15 minutes until you are sprinting flat out and cannot go any more.