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06-18-12, 11:13 AM
It’s been 15 years since I’ve been in the saddle (much) and I’m starting to train again.
Question:
Is there a good, quantitative way to determine the heart rate “zones” for training… that doesn’t include paying a doctor for treadmill time? The rule of thumb methods that subtract your age from some arbitrary number really don’t work well for me. I have (and have always had) a “Kawasaki heart” as opposed to a “Harley heart”. Even when I was in top form, racing every weekend, my resting heart rate never got below 57, and I could peg it at ~180 for 15-20 minutes at a time in the hills. At 37 my max heart rate was somewhere north of the measured 210 + I regularly saw in hill intervals.
That was then and this is now, 15 years and a lot of sedentary time later. I'm 55 and I always ride with an HRM and my heart rate averages ~145 on a good, 30-40 mile ride that seems sustainable but fast enough to keep me from feeling lazy. On a nasty little hill the other day I looked down and the HRM read 186. I really try not to do that too often....
I’m prone to over training so I’d like to set some limits before I “crash” and get sick.
I’m Sam and I’m a hammerhead.
Question:
Is there a good, quantitative way to determine the heart rate “zones” for training… that doesn’t include paying a doctor for treadmill time? The rule of thumb methods that subtract your age from some arbitrary number really don’t work well for me. I have (and have always had) a “Kawasaki heart” as opposed to a “Harley heart”. Even when I was in top form, racing every weekend, my resting heart rate never got below 57, and I could peg it at ~180 for 15-20 minutes at a time in the hills. At 37 my max heart rate was somewhere north of the measured 210 + I regularly saw in hill intervals.
That was then and this is now, 15 years and a lot of sedentary time later. I'm 55 and I always ride with an HRM and my heart rate averages ~145 on a good, 30-40 mile ride that seems sustainable but fast enough to keep me from feeling lazy. On a nasty little hill the other day I looked down and the HRM read 186. I really try not to do that too often....
I’m prone to over training so I’d like to set some limits before I “crash” and get sick.
I’m Sam and I’m a hammerhead.