Originally Posted by
Surfer34
I have never worn a heart rate monitor during exercise in my life but I have always wondered what my readings would be. After researching max heart rates online I have found there are many formulas to calculate it but generally they dont take into account an individuals fitness level.
The basic formula seems to be 220 minus your age. I am 38 so that theoretically gives me a max heart rate of 185.
Without going into too many details, have any your personal experiences shown these formulas to be accurate or close to accurate ?
The maximum heart rate is not at all dependent on fitness level. That's one of the interesting things about it that is somewhat counter intuitive. I recommend finding a good article or book on heart rate training and reding up on it as a starting point.
As for the formula which predicts max HR depending on age - think of it as being as accurate as average shoe size depending on, say, height. Yea, us 5-8 guys might average 8.5 (US) size shoe, but what good does that do you? Many of us will be 8, many 9 and a few at 7 - 7.5 and 9.5 - 10. Guessing does you absolutely no good at all. You have to measure your own foot. You have to measure your own max (somehow - see below).
And by the way, your max will vary depending on the sport: running/walking/hiking vs. XC skiing vs. bicycling vs. swimming, etc.
Measuring accurate max is very difficult and painful. I've used two methods: first, I use a running method described in my heart rate training book. I Worked as hard as I could in doing it, it hurt a lot, and was probably reasonably accurate.
The second way was XC skiing in a race where i just killed myself for the last 5 minutes or so of a ~45 minute race. I looked at the max toward the end when I was seeing stars and on the verge of collapse and used that as my max. for skiing.
Another way to use heart rate is to measure or estimate your Lactate Threshold which can be done with blood value measurements, or by looking at your AVERAGE heart rate for a 45-60 minute race pace event. That method, I think, works very well. Since you can extrapolate various training zones and training plans based on things like "race pace" or LT, that estimate can work very well and might indeed be better than the above estimates of max.
I use that (my race-based estimate on LT) when I try to do "training" for XC ski "racing", but since I never run or bike in serious races, I've never bothered to get a max or LT for those sports. I usually ride at an exertion level depending on my mood and whether I'm trying to keep up with people, and on the rare occassions I run, I use the "talking pace" rule of thumb for fitness walking/running/hiking.