Maximum Heart Rate

[Pedaling Fool]

I've recently bought another cheap heart rate monitor, just to make my runs more interesting. However, since using it I'm starting to get really curious of what my max HR is. According to the basic formula it's suppose to be 172 (220-48{age}), but it's just too easy for me to run at 160bmp and I can run the last 1/2 mile above 170 with no problems and today my final sprint put me at 185, but I wasn't really feeling stressed, even at the end (but it wasn't a very hard sprint).

Found this site for anyone interested in knowing your REAL max HR. http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hrm2.htm and then there is this http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hrm1.htm so I can truly train in my zone, because the zones based on 172 just don't work.

Anyone know of a better method of determining max HR?


BTW, here are some interesting articles on training, for anyone who's interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/he...ted=all&src=pm

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep...hlete-20110901




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[brian039]

I used to work in a cardiopulmonary rehab center. We would occasionally need to test out new equipment or train new hires and would take volunteers. I usually volunteered because there's no better way to get your max heart rate (and several other cool bits of info) than a metabolic cart. I'd suggest contacting some local cardiopulmonary programs and see if they need some help. It's typically $1,000-$1,500 out of pocket for a test like that.

There is quite a large margin of error for the other methods of determining max heart rate.

[burger]

There's quite a lot of variation in maximum heart rate from person to person. Those formulas (there are several) are just approximations.

[Toolshed]

Back when I was a bodybuilder, I had always used ((220-age)x.85) as an upper rate and ((220-age) x .65) as the lower training rate, although one could theoretically go above the high rate as well as burn fat belowe the low rate. I beleive this was also in the book "Eating to Win" which was pretty popular back in the early 80's. I also remember these formulas posted all over the gym walls...

[Pedaling Fool]

There's quite a lot of variation in maximum heart rate from person to person. Those formulas (there are several) are just approximations.

I understand that everyone is different and the charts/formulae are approximations, but the problem is that the approximation is completely useless; I can't even use it as a rule of thumb.

I also understand that I don't need to monitor HR with a monitor while exercising, but it's something I did to help keep up my interest so I'd keep up with my physical training. However, over time questions would pop in my head and so it is now something I'm becoming more and more interested in.

[leaftye]

I determined my max HR by when I puked or got so dizzy I could barely stand. While continuing to wear my HR monitor, I kept my HR below that. Actually, maybe a dozen bpm's below that so that I'd recover quickly.

A HR monitor was a revelation to me when I used it hiking on Sandia in Albuquerque. For quite some time I had been puzzled why I felt so sluggish going up a set of stairs near the top of the mountain. When I brought my HR monitor, I believe my HR was in the high 170's, or maybe mid 180's...it's been a long time. In any case, it gave me a good idea of what I needed to do.

I kind of went through the same thing while lifting weights. After puking a few times, I started wearing my HR monitor. While I'd still do a set with all my effort, using the HR monitor helped me determine how long I should wait before starting the next set.

I do understand your sentiment in your last post. It's fun to have something like a gizmo to make the experience more interesting. I like data, so sometimes I'll record and collate everything.

[Pedaling Fool]

When I posted this thread I didn't completely read the two articles I put at the end of the post; I simply skimmed over them, but I came back and read them later that night and the one NYT article really shed some light on this issue. I had no idea that HR formula of 220 - age was not even suppose to be an "industry" standard. I also didn't know that some elite atheletes only have a max HR of ~160.

I know some hate to open links, so I'll copy the link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/24/he...ted=all&src=pm


'Maximum' Heart Rate Theory Is Challenged


By GINA KOLATA
Published: April 24, 2001

Donald Kirkendall, an exercise physiologist at the University of North Carolina, will never forget the time he put a heart-rate monitor on a member of the United States rowing team and asked the man to row as hard as he could for six minutes.

The standard formula for calculating how fast a human heart can beat calls for subtracting the person's age from 220. The rower was in his mid-20's.

Just getting the heart to its actual maximum rate is an immense effort and holding it there for even a minute is so painful that it is all but inconceivable for anyone who is not supremely motivated, Dr. Kirkendall said. But this rower confounded the predictions.

''His pulse rate hit 200 at 90 seconds into the test,'' Dr. Kirkendall said. ''And he held it there for the rest of the test.'' A local cardiologist was looking on in astonishment and told Dr. Kirkendall, ''You know, there's not a textbook in the world that says a person could have done that.''


But maybe, some physiologists and cardiologists are saying, the textbooks are wrong.

The question of how to find maximum heart rates is not just of academic interest, medical experts say. The formula for calculating the maximum rate has become a standard in cardiology and in fitness programs, and an entire industry has grown up around it, with monitors sold to individuals and built into exercise equipment.

''There is a need, a clinical and societal need, to estimate the maximum heart rate,'' said Dr. Douglas Seals, an exercise physiologist at the University of Colorado.

Doctors use the formula when they test patients for heart disease, asking them to walk on treadmills while the speed and incline are gradually increased until their heart rates reach 85 percent of the predicted maximums.

The idea is to look for signs, like chest pain or a sudden drop in the heart rate, indicating that the heart is not getting enough blood. But if doctors underestimate how fast the person's heart can beat, they may stop the test too soon, Dr. Seals noted.

Personal trainers and exercise instructors design fitness programs around the maximum heart rate, often telling people to wear heart rate monitors and then to exercise at 80 to 90 percent of the maximum in brief spurts to build aerobic capacity and at 65 percent to 75 percent to build endurance.

Some heart monitors built into exercise machines even shut the machines down if an exerciser exceeds 90 percent of the predicted maximum. But if the heart rate formula is wrong, these exercise prescriptions are misguided.

''If you're trying to improve their aerobic fitness or to train for certain endurance events, then you want to know with a reasonable accuracy what intensity you're exercising at,'' Dr. Seals said. ''If your estimate is 10 or 20 beats too low, then you're pretty far off.''

Exercise physiologists say, however, that being pretty far off is more common than most people expect.

''The more information we have, the more we realize that that formula is just a very rough consideration,'' said Dr. Jack H. Wilmore, an exercise physiologist at Texas A&M.

And while Dr. Seals is now proposing a new formula to use as a general guide, he and others say it is simplistic to rely on a single formula to predict the maximum heart rates of individuals.

The common formula was devised in 1970 by Dr. William Haskell, then a young physician in the federal Public Health Service and his mentor, Dr. Samuel Fox, who led the service's program on heart disease. They were trying to determine how strenuously heart disease patients could exercise.

In preparation for a medical meeting , Dr. Haskell culled data from about 10 published studies in which people of different ages had been tested to find their maximum heart rates.

The subjects were never meant to be a representative sample of the population, said Dr. Haskell, who is now a professor of medicine at Stanford. Most were under 55 and some were smokers or had heart disease.

On an airplane traveling to the meeting, Dr. Haskell pulled out his data and showed them to Dr. Fox. ''We drew a line through the points and I said, 'Gee, if you extrapolate that out it looks like at age 20, the heart rate maximum is 200 and at age 40 it's 180 and at age 60 it's 160,'' Dr. Haskell said.

At that point, Dr. Fox suggested a formula: maximum heart rate equals 220 minus age.

But, exercise physiologists said, these data, like virtually all exercise data, had limitations. They relied on volunteers who most likely were not representative of the general population.

''It's whoever came in the door,'' Dr. Kirkendall said.

In addition, he and others said, gauging maximum heart rates for people who are not used to exercising is often difficult because many prematurely stop the test.

As the treadmill hills get steeper, people who are not used to exercise will notice that their calves are aching. ''They will say they can't go any further,'' Dr. Kirkendall said.

In addition, Dr. Wilmore, the exercise physiologist, said it was clear from the scattered data points that maximum heart rates could vary widely from the formula. ''If it says 150, it could be 180 and it could be 120,'' Dr. Wilmore said.

But the formula quickly entered the medical literature. Even though it was almost always presented as an average maximum rate, the absolute numbers took on an air of received wisdom in part, medical scientists said, because the time was right.

Doctors urging heart patients to exercise wanted a way to gauge exercise intensity. At the same time, exercise gurus, promoting aerobic exercise to the public, were asking how hard people should push themselves to improve their cardiovascular fitness. Suddenly, there was a desire for a simple formula to estimate maximum heart rates.

''You tell people to exercise at a moderate intensity,'' Dr. Haskell said. ''Well, what's a moderate intensity?''

Soon, there was a worldwide heart-rate monitor industry, led by Polar Electro Inc, of Oulu, Finland, selling more than 750,000 monitors a year in the United States and citing the ''220 minus your age'' formula as a guide for training.

The formula became increasingly entrenched, used to make graphs that are posted on the walls of health clubs and in cardiology treadmill rooms, prescribed in information for heart patients and inscribed in textbooks. But some experts never believed it.

Dr. Fritz Hagerman, an exercise physiologist at Ohio University, said he had learned from more than three decades of studying world class rowers that the whole idea of a formula to predict an individual's maximum heart rate was ludicrous. Even sillier, he said, is the common notion that the heart rate is an indication of fitness.

Some people get blood to their muscles by pushing out large amounts every time their hearts contract, he said. Others accomplish the same thing by contracting their hearts at fast rates. As a result, Dr. Hagerman said, he has seen Olympic rowers in their 20's with maximum heart rates of 220. And he has seen others on the same team and with the same ability, but who get blood to their tissues by pumping hard, with maximum rates of just 160.

''The heart rate is probably the least important variable in comparing athletes,'' Dr. Hagerman said.

Heart rate is an indicator of heart disease, said Dr. Michael Lauer, a cardiologist and the director of clinical research in cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. But, he added, it is not the maximum that matters: it is how quickly the heart rate falls when exercise is stopped.

An average healthy person's heart rate drops about 20 beats in a minute and the rates of athletes ''nose dive by 50 beats in a minute,'' Dr. Lauer said.

In three recent studies, Dr. Lauer and his colleagues found that people whose rates fell less than 12 beats within a minute after they stopped exercising vigorously had a fourfold increased risk of dying in the next six years compared with those whose heart rates dropped by 13 or more beats.

Dr. Lauer pays no attention to the standard formula when he gives treadmill tests. More than 40 percent of patients, he said, can get their heart rates to more than 100 percent of their predicted maximum. ''That tells you that that wasn't their maximum heart rate,'' Dr. Lauer said.

The danger, he said, is that when doctors use that formula to decide when to end a treadmill test, they can inadvertently mislead themselves and their patients. Some patients may be stopping too soon and others may seem to have a heart problem because they never can get to what is supposed to be their maximum rate.

''Some people are being pushed and others are not,'' Dr. Lauer said. ''In my view, that is unacceptable.''

Yet, Dr. Seals said, many doctors want some sort of guide for estimating maximum heart rates for treadmill tests. And many people who want to increase their fitness crave a general formula.

So Dr. Seals and his colleagues decided to take another stab at finding an equation.

In a study published in the March issue of The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Seals and his colleagues devised a new formula: maximum heart rate equals 208 minus 0.7 times age.

They used published studies involving 18,712 healthy people and data from 514 healthy people they recruited. Their formula gives much higher average maximum heart rates for older people, with the new and old heart rate curves starting to diverge at age 40.

But raising doubts about the heart rate formula is unlikely to lead people to abandon it, exercise physiologists say. What would they do without it?

''I've kind of laughed about it over the years,'' Dr. Haskell said. The formula, he said, ''was never supposed to be an absolute guide to rule people's training.'' But, he said, ''It's so typical of Americans to take an idea and extend it beyond what it was originally intended for.''

[map man]

I figured out my max heart rate a couple years ago by doing an interval workout on a treadmill while wearing a heart monitor. Did two or three quarter mile intervals (with a couple minutes of easy jogging between each interval) a little short of maximum effort to make sure I was good and loose, and then on the next interval I ran just as hard as I could for as long as I could stand to. I topped out at 181 beats per minute at the age of fifty. I did this so I could figure out in subsequent runs with the heart monitor what effort level I needed to get my heart rate to 70% of max for easy runs, 80-88% for tempo runs, and no higher than 96% for interval workouts. Once I figured out what those effort levels felt like, I haven't bothered wearing a heart monitor again. If I had relied on the "formula" to guess at max heart rate I would have guessed 170 and that would have been significantly off -- like I'm guessing it is for many people.

For folks who are not in decent aerobic shape, though, I'm sure it's unwise to try to get your heart rate up to max as a way of figuring out what it is.

[skinewmexico]

Do a VO2 test, they'll tell you your max. From what I understand about max HR, it is trainable, unlike VO2. And I got a lot better on a bike by training in the right HR zone.

[JAK]

I would say the opposite. VO2Max is trainable. Max Heart Rate is not. To determine your Max Heart Rate you run max hard for 2 minutes, stop for 1 minute, repeat. Don't have a heart attack. Seriously. Know what you are doing, but that is how you do it. It declines some with age, varies +-15 between individuals, but is not trainable other than slowing the decline with age by staying active. Resting Heart Rate is trainable, as is the amount of oxygen and blood per heart beat.

For hiking fitness, it is mostly about reducing excess body fat, and hiking regularly so your muscles become more capable for their size, less flawed, suffer less microdamage per mile and you can recover faster, even as you are hiking,

[moytoy]

I would say the opposite. VO2Max is trainable. Max Heart Rate is not. To determine your Max Heart Rate you run max hard for 2 minutes, stop for 1 minute, repeat. Don't have a heart attack. Seriously. Know what you are doing, but that is how you do it. It declines some with age, varies +-15 between individuals, but is not trainable other than slowing the decline with age by staying active. Resting Heart Rate is trainable, as is the amount of oxygen and blood per heart beat.

For hiking fitness, it is mostly about reducing excess body fat, and hiking regularly so your muscles become more capable for their size, less flawed, suffer less microdamage per mile and you can recover faster, even as you are hiking,

I agree wholeheartedly with that last paragraph.

[Pedaling Fool]

Hmmm, interesting question about whether VO2 max and Max HR are trainable. My uneducated guess would be that they both have limits per individual, so in that sense they are NOT trainable.

However, most people don't really exercise their aerobic system completely, including those that go to a gym reguarly or even those that participate in an aerobic activity on a reguar basis, such as hiking. And for those people they do not have the aerobic capability to attain their genetic maximum HR/VO2, so in that sense it is trainable.

[Chuckie V]

Do a VO2 test, they'll tell you your max. From what I understand about max HR, it is trainable, unlike VO2. And I got a lot better on a bike by training in the right HR zone.

A VO2 test will only reveal a maximum heart rate if the lab technician/tester cares to. VO2 refers to oxygen uptake, and it has nothing to do with heart rate. Most labs measure heart rate during a VO2 Max test, but only to gather more information or to spit out generic "training zones" and such.

Your maximal heart rate can be trained to a degree, but the irony is that the fitter and more efficient you become at processing oxygen, the LOWER it becomes. The are a number of reasons for this but the primary one is that your heart pumps more oxygen-rich blood with each beat, and there's a limit to just how much of this blood the rest of the body can utilize (primarily your other organs and your muscles, which also must be trained to handle more oxygen) and how much your brain is willing to allow for, as it pretty much governs everything the body does. Fitness isn't strictly measured by one physiological consideration like heart rate (or oxygen uptake) and it is only measured relative to a particular activity. A football player is no fitter than a thru-hiker, and vice versa.

One of the more optimal ways to measure fitness as a thru-hiker is to set out on a long-ass trail and see if you can hike it in its entirety! But a good start in measuring your overall fitness and well-being is to compare heart rate to pace in a controlled environment, one that eliminates what variables you can (i.e., an indoor track; treadmills are generally too inaccurate): a 4 or 5-mile run within a specific and tight heart rate range, measuring your perceived exertion, your average pace, your mile splits, your total time, the conditions, your clothing, your weight, etc. Over time you'll want to see your heart rate drop at a given pace or your pace drop at a given heart rate. As to how to train "properly," well, that's just as individual as maximal heart rate!

Pardon me for rambling on here...this stuff is how I make my living.

[Pedaling Fool]

Pardon me for rambling on here...this stuff is how I make my living.

Question: If you look at the various tests to determine Max HR, such as the ones I pasted below, they all have one run a given distance for 2 minutes (Test 1) or 400 meters (Test 2) at 100% capability. However, Max HR can be reached in much less time/distance, by simply doing an all-out sprint.

I do have a lot of experience at sprinting and getting my HR up to max, but not so much at operating at 100% for such a relatively long time. Much like a sprinter, they do not, nor can they run 400 meters at that rate. But then again I guess there's a difference between sprinting (acceleration) and obtaining maximum cardio effort and holding it there for relatively long distance/time.

If that's the case then I'm going to have to practice just to ascertain my Max HR, because I tried yesterday and I couldn't reach it.

So why does one need to do maximum effort over a realtively long period in lieu of a sprint (max accelaration over shorter period) to obtain one's max HR? Assuming one warms up correctly, is there any difference?








Stress Test 1 http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hrm2.htm

For this test you need a good hill. The hill needs to take you about two minutes to run up it and of sufficient gradient to ensure you are breathing hard at its summit. The test begins around five minutes running time from the hill. Gradually accelerate towards the hill achieving 85% MHR (for the first time) at the base of the hill. As you hit the hill, maintain your speed by increasing your effort. Your heart rate will rise and you will tire. Without falling over, keep an eye on your monitor and make a mental note of your highest heart rate as you work towards the top of the hill.


Stress Test 2 http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hrm2.htm

For those unfortunate enough to live in an area lacking hills it is possible to carry out a test on a flat piece of road or at your local running track. The plan of attack is to run 800 meters very quick. For the first 400 meters run at up to your current 90 to 95% MHR (to be achieved by the end of the first lap) and for the last 400 metres go for it. During this second lap, you must work at 100%. Very fit athletes may have to repeat this test after a few minutes rest (minimum of 65% MHR) to be able to achieve a true maximum. This test is very reliable.

[Chuckie V]

So why does one need to do maximum effort over a realtively long period in lieu of a sprint (max accelaration over shorter period) to obtain one's max HR? Assuming one warms up correctly, is there any difference?

A longer efforts is not needed and in most cases is only recommended due to common sense or liability reasons. Max heart rate (HR) values have been recorded even while people have sat on their asses, since good old-fashioned fright and/or adrenaline can work wonders. But to find a most accurate maximal heart rate, it's wise to warm-up and reduce what risk you can; the body needs to know what's coming in order to avert disaster. The heart isn't necessarily the only part of you that's at risk, of course (think hamstrings and such!), but the old ticker is certainly under some serious stress when elevated like that. And in most cases, it's not a healthy effort level; the body produces a whole cornucopia of hormonal reactions while the brain, acting as a central governor of sorts, tries to step in to prevent any lasting damage. The subconscious always chooses self-preservation over performance.

Ultimately, there's virtually no point in knowing a max HR value, particularly for a hiker. Training "zones" and such work best when measured not as a percentage of max HR but as a percentage of your lactate "threshold" or "anaerobic threshold." The body knows no definitive thresholds, but knowing what heart rate you can sustain over a given amount of time (i.e., an hour) is far more useful than knowing your absolute maximal HR, methinks. The problem is that such a test hurts even more...and for far longer!

Lastly, keep in mind that if you go looking for an absolute maximal HR, it'll change over time and even from day to day. Our capacity of a crazy high value tends to be highest when we're young and it slowly decreases with age. Our resting HR is lowest when we're at our fittest/healthiest, thus it's a far more useful measure than max HR.

Oh, and when your resting heart rate rises to meet your maximal heart rate value, you know you've got problems!

[Pedaling Fool]

Ultimately, there's virtually no point in knowing a max HR value, particularly for a hiker. Training "zones" and such work best when measured not as a percentage of max HR but as a percentage of your lactate "threshold" or "anaerobic threshold." The body knows no definitive thresholds, but knowing what heart rate you can sustain over a given amount of time (i.e., an hour) is far more useful than knowing your absolute maximal HR, methinks. The problem is that such a test hurts even more...and for far longer!

Yes, I agree. It's just something I've gotten into lately, it does add some fun to my runs. However, in the end I think I do just fine running "by feel" to obtain maximum benefit, especially since I have no desire to break any records. However, I do want to do a few more stress tests, just because I failed miserably the other day; if nothing else, just to train my body to operate at 100% for a relatively long period of time.

Lastly, keep in mind that if you go looking for an absolute maximal HR, it'll change over time and even from day to day. Our capacity of a crazy high value tends to be highest when we're young and it slowly decreases with age. Our resting HR is lowest when we're at our fittest/healthiest, thus it's a far more useful measure than max HR.

I've noticed that. I could hardly keep my HR at 170 the other day when I did stress test #1, yet when I did a 7-mile run yesterday I averaged 170bpm and was feeling really good, not even working, usually my HR is around 150, but lately 160....and then there was yesterday And what was really strange is that I set out to do an easy run to recuperate from the stress test, but my legs had a mind of their own; I tried to slow them down, but it was as if they were on auto I wasn't running, rather I was just along for the run