General Cycling Discussion - Max heart rate.

Hi, I got my first heart rate monitor for Christmas :D , and I was woundering if anyone knew a good test to find your max heart rate. Thanks in advance.
-Matt-

Those who have reduced medicine to an exact science claim that your maximum heart rate is 220 (beats/min.) - your age (years). Personally, I don't buy the linear age correction term. Because of individual differences, I prefer to correlate heart rate with breathing effort / aerobic threshold. For maximum aerobic training, aim to keep your heartrate around 80 percent of the rate which triggers panting.

Ditto on John's statement deriding the 220 - your age formula. If I went by that I would never climb any hills.

It varies a lot with fitness, and there is even a separate formula for more fit "elderly: :rolleyes: folks. (Which I can't remember right now.) Hey, for my mom, age 88, 220 - 88 would mean her heart rate should never get over 132. Difficult for most folks to keep it that low!!

Yes, don't use that formula. You will not be getting the most out of your riding if you do. I did max. heart rate tests last year, but this year we changed it to an endurance type test.

I think the basic structure of the test was a good warm-up, about 5 min. at 24 mph, then +1 mph for every minute after that until you blow and your heart rate is at its highest. This was done on an indoor trainer , in about a 53 by 16, and about this time of the year.

Hope that helped,
velo

I too got an HRM for Christmas. I purchased The Heart Rate Monitor Book for Indoor and Outdoor Cyclists by Sally Edwards and Sally Reed, so I'll know what the numbers mean and how to "properly" use the HRM.

In the book, Sally gives a good formula for determining max HR. It is:
210 minus half your age minus 5% of your body weight (in pounds), plus 4 for men (plus 0 for women).

I'd recommend this book or any book that helps you understand what the numbers mean and how to use the HRM.

Originally posted by RonH

In the book, Sally gives a good formula for determining max HR. It is:
210 minus half your age minus 5% of your body weight (in pounds), plus 4 for men (plus 0 for women).

I just tried this formula. It's more accurate than the other one, but it's still off by quite a lot. I still recommend doing an actual test for the best results.

The 220-age formula is actually fairly accurate -- usually within about 3% -- for males with no history of heart trouble between the ages of 20 and 40. It's when you get outside that range that you have trouble. To some extent, moreover, even a tested maximum will be an approximation because it is dependent on a wide range of variables -- time of day, time of year, subject's fitness, subject's subjective exertion limits, etc. A friend of mine was tested for max every two weeks for a few months some years ago [it was a university sports medicine study], and his maxes ranged from 185 to 211. The 220-age formula would have given him 188 at the time.

Hey thanks a bunch for the advice so far. Right now I think I will go with velo's idea because it seems the most personal and I'm only 17 so I'm not in the age group. Although 24mph seems a lot more like a work out then a warm up :( .
-Matt-

Here is a method of finding max heart rate from the Polar Site.

Have a short workout in your primary activity at your maximum level of exertion using the interval training method.

1) Warm up for at least 10 minutes.

2) Workout for 3 interval sets of at least 3 minutes each, pushing yourself to your maximum level of exertion.

3) During the last interval set, try to push yourself even harder than you did in the first two.

4) Rest at least 2-4 minutes between each interval.

The highest number of heart rate is your maximum heart rate value. However, it may be possible that your Maximum Heart Rate might actually be higher. Therefore, you should do this workout a couple of times and take the average between them.

I hope this helps.
If you do these test right you will most likely feel like puking when you are done. If not you may not have pushed yourself hard enough. Finding MHR is not a pleasant esperience!:)

I've been using a heart rate monitor for about 6 months, just wearing it whenever I ride. I seldom go over 175 on the road. Recently on a steep climb off-road I got up to 195, at which point I was pretty well maxed out. I am 63 years old. The point is that for me 220 minus something or other does not give remotely the right idea of my maximum heart rate.

Interestingly enough my max heart rate is pretty much the same whether using the 220-age calculation or through actual testing. There are about 2 bpm difference and this is certainly subject to change and withing the 3% error rate of the calculation.

My max heart rate is only 185.

The 220 minus age is a good guideline for establishing workout goals, the main thing I use a HRM for is on my recovery rides to assure that I don't overdo them. i do use them for intervals, timetrials etc, but I've learned from experience what I need to do, you should also be aware of the skewing that dehydration will cause while you are training.

I've had some fun with HRMs and once told my out of shape brother (who happens to think he's a medical expert) that my HR got to 196 during a time trial, he lost it! He told me how dangerous it was to get a heart rate that high.

So I got even with him, he just got a HRM for his birthday last month. :roflmao:

I just moved HRM to the top of my cycling needs list :)

Originally posted by RonH
I too got an HRM for Christmas. I purchased The Heart Rate Monitor Book for Indoor and Outdoor Cyclists by Sally Edwards and Sally Reed, so I'll know what the numbers mean and how to "properly" use the HRM.

In the book, Sally gives a good formula for determining max HR. It is:
210 minus half your age minus 5% of your body weight (in pounds), plus 4 for men (plus 0 for women).

I'd recommend this book or any book that helps you understand what the numbers mean and how to use the HRM.

I also got that book. Acutally, it recommends 4 ways to determine your max heart rate and to then take the average. This will be the most accurate.

The math formulas tend to be the least accurate because everyone is different. And if you cycle regularly, chances are, the math formula will be too low.

btw, GREAT BOOK!

Try these as a way of calculating MHR (courtesy of Ball State University). They apparently are slighly more reliable than the 220 - age calculation:

MHR Men = 214 - (0.8 x age)

MHR women = 209 - (0.9 x age)

The Heart Rate Monitor Book by Sally Edwards is excellent (was
$12.95) explains the lot, not heavy and easy to use/follow. It is recommended and sold in conjunction with POLAR heart rate products!

Library of Congress Catalogue N0: 92-62064
or
ISBN 0-9634633-0-6

:beer:

As you get fitter your resting heartbeat should reduce. One trainer I know recomends measuring your heartbeat in bed before you get up, and plot that every day to track your fitness peaks and troughs. Whatever, its a a good excuse to stay there an extra minute.

If you own a trainer, use it for the testing. It'll be much safer than trying to concentrate while riding.

Stretch well, warm up slowly and gradually build to the max. Make sure you spin afterward to cool down. This is not something you just jump on the bike and do.

As stated before, if you're not ready to literally blow up during the peak of the test, then you're not trying hard enough.

I've not found a mathematical test yet that is even close in accuracy.

Perhaps the best use of the HRM is to quantify your heart rate during recovery. (This addresses the distraction/safety issue, as well.) Specifically, how long does it take you to return to, say, 120 percent of your normal resting pulse rate? As you train, your recovery intervals should gradually decrease.

Lance Armstrong's Book "7 weeks to the perfect ride" has a pretty good technique for determining your max HR. It's basically like one of the others mentioned above.

I can't remember the specific's, but it's basically a warm-up, three mile time-trial pedaling at a 90-100 rpm cadence and then a 15-30 min. cool down.

You should attain your max HR at the end of the three mile time trial.

I use this in conjunction with my calculated (as stated above) and determined an "average" that I use.

BTW it's 188.

Originally posted by stridercc
Hey thanks a bunch for the advice so far. Right now I think I will go with velo's idea because it seems the most personal and I'm only 17 so I'm not in the age group. Although 24mph seems a lot more like a work out then a warm up :( .
-Matt-

Wait, the 24 mph is the first part of the test (if the speed seems too fast, you can always put it down, just don't give up until you blow totally). You can warm-up anyway you'd like! I would definitely recommend doing more than the 5 min. stated in the test. Sorry about that...

velo

The only way to reasonable detrmine max HR is to do a Conconni (sp?) test, that is use progressive effort to develop a profile of your HR with the objective of seeing when increased effort no longer raised your HR. You can do this at home if you have a trainer with progressive resistance. All you do is continue to increase the workload in 1 min increments and use your HR monitor to determine your HR at the end of each period. Have someone record this and go until increased effort no longer results in increased HR and that is your max. Gives you a nice progressive curve with all the steps in between too.

There are so many variables, that the formulas really don't work for many people. What I've found helpful is to find a steep hill (at least .5 mi. long); go up it as hard as you can go; when you can't go any harder take a look at your monitor; that's a pretty good max rate. You might want to upgrade this every few months. John

I think you have to go back to why you would want to know your max HR in the first place. What you really want is a way to establish zones for your training, personally most of my training is done in zone #3 and this means I keep the HR around 140, which in turn translates to about 70% of my max HR.

Training in this way assures that I'm getting good work done, but I don't always wear a HRM since I know from experience how long I can sustain an effort.

As I've said before, the main purpose of wearing a HRM for me is to remind myself to keep my recovery rides in zone #2. (i.e. around 120-130 BPM)

How do you know your 70% of your HR if you don't know your max.....70% of what????
All serious HR training is predicated on knowing your max and the 220 minus formula is not worth anything. If you don't establish your max HR properly you are just playing around with the monitor.

For some interesting discussin on Max HR and formulas you might want to read some of the post at this site. Beware some of this is off topic but there are a few people in the discussion who really know what they are talking about.

If the url does not work, do a search in google for the title: "More max HR" in the group rec.bicycles.racing

http://navigation.helper.realnames.com/framer/1/112/default.asp?realname=www%2Egoogle%2Ecom&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egoogle%2Ecom%2F&frameid=1&providerid=112&uid=200967722

All serious HR training is predicated on knowing your max and the 220 minus formula is not worth anything. If you don't establish your max HR properly you are just playing around with the monitor.

No, not at all, Your HR only reflects your effort, it does not dictate it. For the purposes of training the 220-age is adequate and then you can work from there. If I use that as a guideline, I have a max heart rate of 178 and I know from testing that my true max is nearer to 200.

70% of 200 is 140 and 70% of 178 is 124 and the top end of this range (80%) is 142. Therefore, if I use an "inaccurate" formula to assess my Max HR, I still can attain good training provided I know from experience that I can maintain this tempo indefinately.

Further, your HR will tend to drift upwards during training and you may actually suppress your effort if you rely on hard and fast rules to dictate your effort. Many cyclists are actually stunting there development by focusing on the HRM instead of actaul effort. On hot days towards the end of a training ride, my heart rate is in fact a very poor indicator of my effort.

Bottom line here, experience is a better guideline than any formula. The formulas will only get you in the ballpark and then you must work from there.

When I do interval training, I do not use a HRM because I do not want to focus on something besides where I am steering. I also advocate using a cycle computer that is equiped with cadence in order to get the most out of training, a training regimen that uses good HR information yet poor cadence will yield poor results for the effort given.

If I use that as a guideline, I have a max heart rate of 178 and I know from testing that my true max is nearer to 200.

70% of 200 is 140 and 70% of 178 is 124 and the top end of this range (80%) is 142. Therefore, if I use an "inaccurate" formula to assess my Max HR, I still can attain good training provided I know from experience that I can maintain this tempo indefinately.

So what does this mean...you train at 124 when you are really are trying for effort at the 140 level? No no thats wrong, experience tells you that you should be going harder so you do? Why bother with a HRM.

Further, your HR will tend to drift upwards during training and you may actually suppress your effort if you rely on hard and fast rules to dictate your effort.

Agree but the idea is to periodically retake the self test as you get fitter and then readjust levels, mind you the change is not going to be all that significant.

Many cyclists are actually stunting there development by focusing on the HRM instead of actaul effort.

The monitor is simply a tool to help you in a serious training effort and not something magic.

When I do interval training, I do not use a HRM because I do not want to focus on something besides where I am steering.

Whatever, but it is interval training where the HRM is particular valuable as it prevents you from kidding yourself about your level of effort (as you cited in the previous paragraph).

I also advocate using a cycle computer that is equiped with cadence in order to get the most out of training, a training regimen that uses good HR information yet poor cadence will yield poor results for the effort given. [/B][/QUOTE]

I don't understand the relevence of this at all. Runners who were the original users of HRMs don't monitor turnover yet HR is a basic tool of serious running training.

By the way there are lots of good books on using a HRM.

I train at around 140 generally for extended periods, my theoretical max is an academic exercise. I'll go to lower efforts to recover (which is the most useful aspect of a HRM) that is to not overdo the effort on my recovery days. This goes back to experience that I've gained over time. When I do intervals, my focus is not on my HR, it is on going as hard as I can. My HR rate will drop as I continue my sessions. In other words, my percieved effort will remain the same and my HR will not respond the way you'd think it should towards the end of a session.

Cadence is far more important than many give it credit for, training at low cadence will give significantly poorer results than if training is done at higher cadences (e.g. 95-105) this places a greater burden on the cadio-vascular system. Cadence is as important (if not more) as HR.

I don't want to burst anyone's balloon, but the whole MR-training thing is a theoretical exercise. Just as 220-age, and all of the other formulae and tests are approximations, so is the whole HR-percentage game.

The bottom line is that everyone's physiology is different, and everyone's physiological responses are subject to a wide range of stimuli. Our bodies simply are not wired so rigidly everyone's aerobic zone falls neatly into the 70-80% maxHR range, or that your AT is NECESSARILY going to be between 80 and 90%, or even that your AT will be on Tuesday where it was on Sunday.

Hell, do any of us actually know what "maximum heart rate" actually means? According to Sally Edwards -- whose book is generally excellent -- it is the maximum frequency at which one's heart can contract, and the point at which increased exertion does not create increased heart rate. The problem is that, if you read some medical literature, this is higly variable, and dependent on a whole number of factors, including environmental and physiological conditions. Those conditions change, so will your maxHR.

There isn't even a necessary equivalence of how much power or energy equally fit people can output at equivalent HR percentages. There are variables down to the mix of fast-twitch and slow-twitch fibre, muscle mass and V02 that can't be quantified exactly. As much as we want our sport to be a science, you do yourself no favours by getting hung-up on precisely defining the inexact.

The zones, like the formulae, are rough guidelines that you should use to guide your workouts. If you find that you push your AT at 90% of your calculated maxHR, then that's great... if you find it's 78% or 95%, then that's what you should focus on.

What you should do is experiment, test, and above all, talk to your physician. If you don't feel like you have to do the test [and unless you're a sponsored athlete, you don't], you should probably stay on the conservative side, anyway.

Whether you maxHR is 185 or 200 won't really matter if what your training for is sprints for beer.

Chill.

OKAY

You finally got my interest. So, I dug through the "old stuff" box and, voila, I found my HRM.

I put it on, and after a little adjusting and squeezing, it actually fit and worked.

Now, I am new to this trainer stuff, and am only doing 20-25 minutes right now. But, I managed to get the old HR up to 150 for a period of time (I am 62 yo), and kept it mostly about 135-140. Once I stopped it recovered from 145 to 90 in 2 minutes??

Hey, it was fun to mess around, particularly with the trainer, as it is pretty much boring, so watching the old HRM go up and down is one of the more exciting aspects!!

I will use it again.

I ran a little when I was younger, and precieved effort was/is the best guide. If you feel your body it will tell you what is going on. Ride till it hurts a bit and back off till does not - puts you in a good training zone.
Your breathing, sweat etc. will tell you where your body is in real time during the exercise.
The heart is a muscle and can be improved like any muscle. I think that is the whole point of work-outs, to get it and your oxegen transport system more efficent.
I'm 56 and like RichB - 63 years old I can get my heart around 200 -but not on bike only on treadmill. Hard hill reps only produce 160+ rate, and 22 mph on fairly level road levels off at 135 bpm. If hill reps were the answer then I ride at 85% of my 160 mhr.
You want to make heart work hard. A sustainable effort, so it can get stronger. Same as a runner that goes out and runs 2 or 3 hours a day to build a base. They run at a hard , but sustainable effort to increase there Max Oxg Uptake, make their heart able to pump a greater volume of oxegyn rich blood per stroke, etc.. Then go out and do reps to bring out their best speed. The higer base allows one to carry higer pace in race without cutting too eeply into arobic level.
Only other point- East Germany's sports machine found that you must do base fiirst - when you start anerobic workouts you stop the aerobic base build up. Do not add speed workouts - reps or hills untill you have built up aerobic base. Running that takes about 12 to 14 weeks.
I run-on too much.
Kevin Smith

I am a 16 year old middle distance runner, and i still can go +207.
I am no small fish (National champion 800m and cross country) but i think heart rate max's in cycling is much more important. If you can keep it stable around the V0²Max at about 160 NPM thats much more interesting for a cycler...
No?

Hey, I am LIKING this trainer stuff combined with the HRM. Perhaps I will tire of it soon, but I am getting a kick out of seeing how fast I can get the old ticker going and sustan that rate. I am getting right about 150 bpm at a cadence of about 100 with max resistance on the trainer - and sustaining that for a few minutes, then relaxing. I am sure this violates all of the training scenarios by some of you out there, BUT, I like it!!

Nope, Fox... sounds like what you're doing in interval training -- pushing hard up to your anaerobic threshold, recovering, pushing again, etc. -- it's one of many useful things you can do with a trainer and a HRM. Good training, that. At this time of year, my main focus is aerobic and cardio-vascular. I have no illusions, and I know that I'm in a preparatory phase. I'll be working on my base in about a month... and THEN I plan to start pushing the ol' AT.

Today, I'm just going to do some trail running.

From "Precision Heart Rate Training" by Edmund R. Burke, Ph.D.

"After age 20, MHR in sedentary individuals drops about one beat per year, but, generally speaking, if you train fairly hard, your MHR will stay the same over the years."

" . . . actual MHRs can vary individually by as many as 15 beats without implying the presence of any illness."

the 220 - your age "is not very accurate, especially for individuals who are very fit or who want to determine their MHR."

"Maximal Heart Rate is Sport Specific" MHR for swimming is about 10-13 bpm in freestyle swimming as compared to running.

And lots and lots more about how to test for MHR, etc.

In other words, the 220-your age is pretty non-applicable to many folks.

Lets put it this way, if you have a 25 year old man and he does the field test to find out his Max HR is really 198 instead of 195, where does this leave you? 70% of this is 138.6 instead of 136.5...wow that's two whole beats per minute and who's to say that this guy is getting the same workout at 70% as everybody else? You can't know any of this for sure on any given day.

I've been at Time Trials where people were complaining that their HR wouldn't get up to where "it should be" and yet they had times that were not significantly different from any others they had done of the same distance. Maybe all that training was paying off in ways they were not sure of.

It was funny last summer when Chris Carmicheal was talking during the TDF and he predicted that Lance's HR would be around 196 or so and Lance never got over 190 on the stage and still destroyed everyone.

Unless you have Ed Burke following you around day after day, you won't ever know your exact max HR. If you do use your HRM for any length of time and use some guidelines that are provided for you in literature, you will eventually come to understand your own unique physiology and can work from there.

You can also use the age old method of talking to someone while you ride, if you can hold a conversation without panting, chances are that you are training aerobically. This is where the vast majority of your training should be.

Hey All-

Found this forum recently in my internet wanderings as I have tried to educate myself about cycling. I'm buying my first bike right now and hope to enjoy a few of these nice weekends before it dumps the inevitable 2 ft. of snow in south bend. I know almost nothing about cycling, but I do have a little knowledge of HR training...

I guess I wanted to add a little bit of my imperfect knowledge of HR (max) to this thread- if nothing else, one thing I do know pretty well is that for young (under 25) people pushing themselves to their athletic extreme, max heart rates vary by a lot. Right now I'm in winter training and we erg (use ergometers - rowing machines) something like 2 hours a day. On sprint day (2 min on, 1 min off x 13), we check our heart rates after each piece. I personally will max out around 210 but there is one former cross country runner that maxes around 225. 85-90% (by wattage - power) for me is around 180bpm. Take these numbers as you will, I just wanted to reassure some of you out there who might be seeing really high HRs from time to time yet don't figure that their chest will burst at age 22.

Some other fun facts: your resting heart rate is an excellent, in fact one of the only easily measured, objective indicators of training fatigue. Find your resting heart rate by taking your HR right after you wake up during a low intensity or off week. As your body gets more beat up by two-a-days or just long intense workouts day after day your resting HR will increase. An increase of over 15 beats first thing in the morning (this number is debated) could indicate you should ease off a little bit for maximum aerobic capacity growth.

Sorry for the book length post... rowers are similar workout nerds as all you guys are and when you have 40 guys on 12 hour bus rides, some reading training books, some interesting facts are exchanged.

Riles

Fun word of the day:
Arrogance: n. Telling your team in November that by the end of winter training you will be in good enough shape to buy a banana hammock (aka thong style swimsuit for guys).

Originally posted by NotreDameRower


Sorry for the book length post... rowers are similar workout nerds as all you guys are and when you have 40 guys on 12 hour bus rides, some reading training books, some interesting facts are exchanged.

Riles

Fun word of the day:
Arrogance: n. Telling your team in November that by the end of winter training you will be in good enough shape to buy a banana hammock (aka thong style swimsuit for guys).

Welcome to the site, and don't worry about the length.

Richard

I'm planning to purchase one of Sally Edward's Heart Rate books. I'm debating between Sally Edwards' Heart Zone Traning and The Heart Rate Monitor Book for Outdoor and Indoor Cyclists. I went to several book stores, but no one had either in stock. So I'm planning to order it online.

Which should I get? Which book will I get more info from?

Unless you have an extremely tight budget, get both.

It's been months since I've posted here and months since I've used a HRM. With winter just around the corner, I'll be strapping it on soon as it will keep me from getting the max HR up too high too often.

An occasional sign sprint won't hurt me this time of year, but my focus needs to be on achieving the solid base from which to build on.

I'm always on a tight budget. I purchased "The Heart Rate Monitor Book for Outdoor and Indoor Cyclists" and Lance's book. I was afraid that Sally Edward's books contain redundant information.

Accepting all the other excellent advice before and the need to first get your heart and lungs etc checked heres a simple way to find your Max HR
using the rowing machine.

After properly warming up (I use an exercise cycle ) and stretching exercises

Do the following reps on the rowing machine AS HARD AS YOU CAN GO) ( you will need to set the row machine to a suitable setting)

Row for 15 seconds
rest for 15 seconds
Row for 30 seconds
rest for 30 seconds
Row for 45 seconds
rest for 45 seconds
Row for 60 seconds
check your pulse that should give you your max HR

I warn you this is very hard indeed but provided you do it supervised in a gym with a qualified fitness instructor you should be fine

When checking your resting pulse it is important you do it before you move at all. I take my pulse at my wrist for 15 seconds and multiply by x4 before I even open my eyes. Any movement will send your HR soaring and make the reading useless.
good luck

Here are my results using the calculations on this page:
189.5
192.0
191.6
The average is:
191.03
Is it safe to assume the the max is the average plus or minus 5 when there is a new moon and the winds are out of the southwest at <5mph? I only ask because I don't feel like exerting myself to nausea.

Really though doesn't all this worry about heart take some of the enjoyment out of cycling?

If you are obsessed with HR etc, then yeah, it will take the enjoyment out of cycling. What a HRM can do for you is allow you to make the best use of your time on the bike.

Much of the time I use it mainly to assure that my recovery days are just that, recovery days. There are many times where I don't use them and just ride for the enjoyment of it. I don't use them on all of my rides. I do use them give me a focus for my workouts and the max HR is something I shoot for only once or twice a year.

Originally posted by MKRG
Here are my results using the calculations on this page:
189.5
192.0
191.6
The average is:
191.03
Is it safe to assume the the max is the average plus or minus 5 when there is a new moon and the winds are out of the southwest at <5mph? I only ask because I don't feel like exerting myself to nausea.

Really though doesn't all this worry about heart take some of the enjoyment out of cycling?

:)

The max HR is only a guess of where you should be, some days your target HR will be different than for others. If you use one long enough, you will know when the HRM isn't telling you the whole story about your effort.

I know that everyone has their own way...but the way I figure it...if I saw a couple of trees, got some "fresh" air and feel relaxed after a ride. Then it was a good ride. I can understand it if people see it as a "training" activity, but all this back and forth about getting the most accurate HRMax is crazy. The variance in the formulas is minimal. The formulas are meant as mere guidelines. Any formula designed to represent nature is an approximation that people have developed to represent their own observations and is therefore subject to variance. Chemistry, Physics etc they are all inexact sciences and Sports Medicine is definitely more so. (I have yet to see theoretical and actual values match up...anywhere). In my opinion the most accurate determination is to exert yourself until you puke or push yourself until you break (and I don't think that's healthy to push something as important as your heart to the point that it can't take anymore) I think if you chose to go this route that you do it under the supervision of a cardiologist because at least then if something does go wrong there is somebody that can help (or at least try) To sum it up: If you really want your HRMax go get a stress test under the supervision of a "professional". They will have the equipment to give you an accurate figure (range) and the knowledge to help you out in the event you blow a fuse. I'm sorry if I ruffle any feathers over this but understand that I'm saying this from the standpoint of a 28 year old that got told I had a blockage in the artery to my left ventricle (you know, the big one) due to a false positive on a thallium stress test. The angiogram confirmed everything was clean as a whistle and I ride my bike as a way to keep it that way (I enjoy every second of it) and I don't worry about percentages or ranges or HRM's because I'm in the "happy I'm here to ride my bike" range. Your heart is important don't blow it up on some trail somewhere because some book tells you to.

My $0.02 or was it $0.05 Sorry about the rant but I just think people shouldn't overstress their hearts because they are in fact kind of fragile and incredibly important.

Well the formula of 220-age is not a good one in my estimation. A few years back 3 of us rode together and our max heart rates varied quite a bit. Larry was at about 210 and he was 45. I was 196 and I was 46. And Jack was at 175 and he was 50. So Jack was the only one who was predicted very well.

Heart rate monitors are good in that they do tell you when you are hitting certain zones. I have found that over 185, I am redlining things. At 170+, things feel intense. I can maintain 165 for over an hour though. And I really don't feel like I am exercising unless I hit about 140.

The heart rate monitor can help you learn what the different zones feel like and that can be a help. But I have never really thought that heart rate monitors were essential. I have had good training results (as a strong recreational rider) by just going out and riding. It really is not that complex. If I wanted to be race, well I would need a more structured training. But cycling is a recreation for me (I already have a job). Also, I just don't have the talent to compete successfully at any but maybe the lowest level. To really be successful at bicycle racing, you have to be a freak of nature. However, virtually anyone of even very modest ability can turn in performances that seem virtually supernatural to couch potatos.

The monitor can tell you if you are having a "bad" day. By that I mean your perceived effort is much higher than your heart rate indicates. But I can tell that I am having a "bad" day without the monitor anyway.

I have used a monitor in another way. If I am riding with weaker riders, I can use the monitor to figure out the heart rate where they get dropped. And then I can just ride below that so we can keep together. This is especially useful on hills.

The Heart Rate calc's vary about as much as anything else. Although when I compute them they are all within a few beats of each other.

My problem is My max HR is like 17 beats from any of the calculations. I should be at 182 and I'm dying at 161 and I think I once saw 165, but things were spinning and I was just trying to hang on to the bars. lol

My point is, I ride most of my rides within about 5-9 beats from my max for hours at a time. With no problems whatsoever. I'm a big guy, 6'3" around 225-230. Rode about 7 century rides this summer, with the last averaging 19.2mph. I fit none of the charts as far as riding in target zones and such.

I found a web site that said there is a very small % of people that have a very low Max HR, and can work their heart very close to it without stress and strain. I felt somewhat comforted. I've been an athlete all my days, and now at 41 at turning to the bike, since it is much easier on the knees, but still allows me to challenge myself and also provides the element of competition which I enjoy.

Ok I'm a Hill Freek. I usually Freek out on the Long Climbs. hahah
Most of my riding buddies are about 150lbs soaking wet, and I get such a workout just trying to stay within sight. The HRM really helps during those times, to either warn me I'm about to blow up, or helps me when I'm trying to calm myself down to continue.

I have a watch HRM, but bought the Vetta V100HR, which I really like. It stores a lot of info for review after the ride.

Sorry for the long post.

Mike

Hi Mike
I suffer the same as you. I am also about 225 Ibs although only 6 foot I am very heavily built.
I too have been an athlete all my life and swimmer but always the sprint and field events because my genes have favoured me with a preponderance of fast twitch muscles.
Because of my training and competition experience of mainly explosive events I have never been able to develop a good cardio-vascular fitness level and even when fit from riding frequent centuries I still struggled on the hills. i am unable to run more than 1 mile before I breach my aerobic threshold and have to walk to recover.

I can usually get my HR up to 175+ still, even though I am now a super vet cat ( over **)
The only time I cannot is when I am tired from over training or suffering from a virus. Some of these viruses are long acting and can stay around for many months. It might pay you to get a thorough check up with bloods just to eliminate any possible underlying health problem and to get a complete check up and fitness assesment from the local fitness centre.

The way I periodically check my MHR is on the rowing machine with the following workout.
warm up 10 mins ( usually cycle)
then on the row machine continuous
15 seconds as fast as possible.
15 seconds easy row.
30 seconds fast as possible
30 seconds easy row
45 seconds fast as possible
45 seconds easy row
60 seconds fast as possible
60 seconds easy row whilst measuring HR.... pass out.......

I would be interested to know what your general resting pulse is on waking up ?Should be taken before any physical movement raises the HR
Nick

Earlybird,

Thats a good question. My resting is around 54-56. But that's not first thing in the am.

I'll try and put the HRM on and find out. You got my curiosity up.

Thanks