Calculating Max Heart Rate
Harlow Yellow
Posts: 71
in General Chat
Just got myself a Garmin 305 that obviously wants to know my max heart rate to calculate my zones.
Is working out max heart rate as simple as running like a looney and taking my pulse (or the biking equivilent) or should I be doing something far more scientific.
Also Joe Friel recommends calculating lactate threshold rather than MHR but I can't follow his methods for working this out. Anyone explain in laymans terms please.
Is working out max heart rate as simple as running like a looney and taking my pulse (or the biking equivilent) or should I be doing something far more scientific.
Also Joe Friel recommends calculating lactate threshold rather than MHR but I can't follow his methods for working this out. Anyone explain in laymans terms please.
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Hope that helps
Mark
It costs you nothing and is very accurate.
Just ordered a HRM so will be giving this a try.
I'm just reading Joe Friel's book. It's very good but to my mind his method of finding lactate threshold is problematic. You have to be able to recognise when you've reached it to know what heart rate you reach it at, which might be difficult to judge for the inexperienced (like me).
Hill reps it is!!!
Basically do a good warmup then do a 30 minute time trial at a hard steady pace that you can maintain for the full 30 minutes. 10 minutes into the test click the lap button on your HR monitor then 20 minutes later, at the end of your TT click the lap button again. The average Heart Rate for this 20 minute lap is your Lactate Threshold Heart Rate. you can then refer this number to the tables in Joe Friels book to establish the various training intensities.
A seperate test needs to be done for the bike and run.
Like THE YEO said the other method is lab testing but if you want to retest every 6-8 weeks it is a lot cheaper and easier to go out on the road and do the Joe Friel test than pay to go to Lab testing.
In trying to reach my max heart rate I ran a steady 7km cross country with rapid acceleration towards the end leading to a MHR of 167.
I then did full on sprint hill reps (5) up a muddy hill about of about 200m but the MHR achieved was 164 despite being totally out on my feet at the end of each run.
Can my MHR really be only 167. I think MHR doesn't relate to fitness so I'm not sure what to make of it but I hit 152 yesterday up an incline on what was a steady 6 mile run. Doesn't seem a lot of difference in HR compared to the vast difference in effort.
I'm 42 but pretty fit - 2.25pb last year for Olympic Tri and sub 39 min 10k runner during triathlon.
Any of our resident experts offer a view on whether 167 is likely to be my MHR or is there more in the tank?
Thanks.
My resting is 48 and max is 198.
First off, I'm no expert, so others may correct me. But I have read several articles where professional athletes maximum heart rates are mentioned and they always seem to vary massively - some have a maximum of 160 at age 30 whereas others have a max of 200 at 40. A high or low max HR doesn't seem to be any indicator of overall fitness i.e. it's neither better nor worse, or a sign of fitness or slovenliness, to have either a high or low maximum.
For the record, my resting rate is 50 and my maximum (using the agent_tri method) is 195. I'm 36, so in theory I should have a maximum of 184. It's a complete pain in the neck for my HRM, because I seem to have set the heart ranges correctly on my watch but whenever I transfer the data to my computer it insists on my Max heart rate being 184 - i.e. my tortuously maintained zone 3 training run suddenly becomes a zone 4/5 run on the computer graphs. Annoying!
Max HR tends to be genetically determined, training wil make little or no difference..loking for trouble? Blame your parents. Resting can & will be altered by training, thus creating a bigger gap from lo to hi, your heart rate range, this has the effect of broadening all of your zones.
I would not be concerned that your max is 'only' XX, or is XX+, that for sure is a figure you can do little about, although statistically it is supposed to decrease each year...but are those stats based on a sedentary poulation?