corrado33

I'd compare the HR monitor with manual readings (count number of beats in 20 seconds, multiply by 3.) (Obviously do this while stopped...)

bobwysiwyg

I agree. I use Strava and an optical wrist monitor. Less than a mile into a recent ride, virtually flat, Strava recorded a 210 for my heart rate. I'm 72, should have had a coronary right then and there. It's one of my benchmark routes so it's repeated occasionally. It was clearly an anomaly. Either the monitor did a hiccup, there was a blue tooth blip, who knows. Stay calm and carry on as they say.

Chandne

My Garmin will show a higher rate by 20-30 bpm if I am near power lines. I'm 47 and 175 lbs. My heart rate is a bit high since I am not fit enough but I only go to 170-180 when I am climbing at close to 80%-90%. After 185-190, I start to feel unwell...like my heart will blow up. As I try to get more fit, I think my heart rate will come down since I will be exerting less effort at a given cadence/gear. Download an app like Cardiio and check your heart rate throughout the day. That high a rate seems unusual to me but we are different body types and ages. I check my heart rate through the day on two different apps. It ranges from 58-80, depending on what I am doing. I assume as I build my legs and cardio, the heart rate will come down.

rm -rf

yes, see if it's working correctly.

Is this a chest strap? or something else? Who makes it?
I missed that the OP reported:
Got a Wahoo TICKR. a chest strap.

"Flapping Jersey Syndrome" is where static builds up on your jersey, and the fabric flapping in the wind makes fake readings. I would get an instant spike from my normal 150 range directly to 220 for a short period. Holding the fabric away with my hand would make it go back to the correct numbers. (Some riders have seen this happen and gone to the emergency room!) But this would come and go, not usually read high for a long period of time.

My Garmin hard strap rarely or never has false static readings. And it's not affected by power lines, etc.

~~~

Can you see the heart rate while riding, since it's on your phone?
Sitting in a chair, what does it display for heart rate?

Try a "zone 2" ride and see what it reports. It's a very easy pace, below the point where your breathing speeds up. Very light pressure on the pedals. Slow speeds. It's usually about 75% to 80% of your max heart rate. So, for a 200 bpm max, that's about 150 to 160. (for me, with a max around 170 or so, it's approximately 125.) See what your strava report shows.

DrIsotope

I don't think the OP's numbers are a result of device error as the graph is pretty consistent straight across. When I first got on the bike (I was around 240lbs) I would sustain an average HR during rides of ~160bpm... and feel like I was going to die. And I mean I would be so wrecked I couldn't even ride the next day. The consistently high HR with no large dips implies to me the OP has very poor recovery rate, so his heart is working really, really hard to maintain a 15.6mph average. I'm not one to yell "go to the doctor," but in this case, it might not be such a bad idea to go see a doctor.

Doge

That looks real to me. Don't know about your zones.
The fitter you get the more it will look like a wave breaking from left to right. For those not near the beach...while your HR increases rapidly with effort it should decrease faster when the effort is off. You will also see this more when fresher (left side of graph) and less at the end of a ride when you are fatigued. More variation in effort (hills, intervals) would give greater variation in HR (duh) and more could be inferred from a single graph. But in all cases if you have them over time you will start to see changes. But those are about you. Comparing to others does not mean so much.

But it being high ... here are some of my son's max Ave HRs. He was going hard. His newer ones are higher yet.

Doge

If you have lots of data - easy to tell blips. The Ave is pretty good if the HR in the graph is believable. Some people have heart conditions - I don't know about those.
As I had my snipper out - these are blips below - we think real max is about 207. But then you get someone goofing around trying to trick the equipment and you get power blips too, although I think the 3rd is real:

bikebreak

Yeah, it's not too extreme, I've done 178 average with 197 max for 58 miles
Bike Ride Profile | Morning Ride near Pikesville | Times and Records | Strava
my HR was lower towards the end since I was getting dehydrated and started to take it easy

I use an older garmin chest strap, I guess it runs a little fast, and my ticker runs a bit fast.
I rode with buddy and we compared for a mile and his HR was about 20 less than mine

gsa103

I'm about the OP's age, 36, significantly lighter. My max heart rate is about 185, as confirmed by the 17% kicker at the top of Mt. Diablo. The OP's real max HR has to be in about 210 for him to be reporting those numbers at that intensity.

Something isn't adding up. The Strava estimate power (bad, I know) is coming in at 117 W, which is consistent with what I would call modest effort (especially at the OPs size). Yet his heart rate is more consistent with a very strenuous effort. So either the max HR is way off, or the heart rate monitor isn't reading properly. The max heart rate being off is a bit a concern and might warrant a getting a physical if that is reasonably feasible for the OP.

FLvector

The only time I have trouble with a reliable reading from my HRM is when it's cool out, under 45 degrees or so. At temps higher than this there's enough moisture on the chest to provide a good contact. When it gets wonky at these lower temps it either displays nothing at all, or sometimes some very high numbers (250's) which I know isn't accurate, since I'm just beginning to warm up. What happens then is the numbers will slowly descend from 250 down to the actual HR as my body begins to sweat, providing a good contact.

OP - the more you ride with the HRM, the more you'll understand what your normal range is. You'll probably notice as you ride more and your fit improves, your avg HR will decrease over time.

Doge

How do you get that? We saw 191 max. Why couldn't his max be 192 or something like that? The estimated power on non-hill is not so good.

corrado33

You underestimate what it takes to measure maximum heart rate. The OP said that he was "barely breathing hard." There's no way in hell that he reached his maximum heart rate.

I'd say that the HR monitor is measuring 20-30 BPM high. That's my opinion. I've had HR monitors read CONSISTENTLY wrong before, so I don't doubt it. When my Fitbit HR gets too far from my wrist it'll default to ~110 BPM for some reason. And it's pretty stable as well.

Unless the OP has a medical condition where he has a fast heart rate, I'd say there's no way he sustained 178 BPM average without breathing hard. Here's the deal. The "out of shape" argument doesn't work here. Out of shape people can't raise their heart rate to that level, period, let alone sustain it for long periods of time. When I was sorta out of shape and started running, I had average heart rates of 165-170 for a run which I would consider "hard." (Breathing heavily, can't talk to people, etc.) As I got more in shape, those average heart rates decreased to ~140 for the same speed of run. Now, just because I'm in shape doesn't mean I can run at 178 BPM for long periods of time. Anytime I get above 170-175 I'm breathing heavily. Anything above 180-185 and I'm DYING up a hill or something. Anything above 190 and I'm about ready to pass out. So the "in shape" argument doesn't work either.

I'm also 10 years younger than the OP.

WalksOn2Wheels

I'm pretty close to him in age (33) and those numbers make perfect sense for someone new to riding or maybe new to HR training. When I first got my Edge 510 (I guess that would put me closer to 30 or 31 at the time), I felt like on my 7-ish mile commute I was pushing moderate to hard, but consistently averaging only 17 or so mph. This was after a couple of years of really getting back into riding. Looking at those first few rides, my HR was way up there. I then committed to keeping it in zone 2 for the majority of my rides.

Within a few months, I was riding 25 miles on my "commute" with my average at 150-155 (my zone 2 based on LTHR) and an average speed of 16.5-17.5 mph. So while my average speed wasn't really that high, I was expending a lot less effort. Now, even after a really bad 2015 that saw little riding, I'm able to do 17-18 mph avg for an average HR of 150-155 (my zone 2) on a route with lots of rollers, about 1,500 feet elevation over 25-30 miles. I usually kick into zone 3 on steep hills, and I still have a lot of work to do. I did a ride last weekend where I was mostly in zone 3 and averaged 20 mph over a 15 mile section of it. I feel that it's unlikely I would have been able to achieve that without working those zone 2 rides. I'd still be pushing "hard" and averaging 17 all day long.

And in terms of size, I'm 6'2" and all of these results have been at weights from 215-230+ pounds.

EDIT: I feel like I should add a disclaimer that I am not anything even close to an expert on HR training, nor have I received any coaching or really ever done any properly structured workouts based on HR zone training. I just got my 510 when they first came out, figured out where zone 2 should be, and tried to do 90+% of my rides in that zone as that is what I gathered from a few online resources. Still, I feel like getting that 510 and using the HR monitor was the single best thing I've done for myself in all my years of cycling.

DMC707

When i'm out of shape, i have a much harder time pushing myself to higher heart rates. Early season rides i might sniff 160-165 briefly on hills

i also think that the OP should have felt like death was imminent on a 1 hour ride at 178, -- but we're all different.

I have a friend who is a runner and his max HR is into the 190's, another who is a very good mtb'er and he rarely gets out of the 150's and doesnt know his true max-- i'm sort of between these 2 extremes and we are all the same age (44)

WalksOn2Wheels

HR is very, very individual. I remember last year when they released some of Froome's data on a climb (insert doping comment here), it was revealed that he was only doing maybe high 150's or something? He said his max was only in the 160's. So what for me is the beginning of zone 3 is apparently Froome's HR nearly pegged out.

And what you described as not being able to get your rate up is usually associated with over training or the body being tired.

EDIT: I was remembering the Froome stuff way wrong. Max of 174 on the climb, which is probably over his LTHR, but right at mine.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...tour-de-france

redfooj

This doesn't help you directly, but an extra data point is better than none at all:

Im similar age, half the weight

All my rides avg 160-180hr, max reaching 200

These are standard non-competitive group rides, with perceived effort of 7. Besides intermittent sprints or steep climbs, no real gut-wrenching effort expended.

Same numbers whether I was doing 3x40mi per week rides or once a week. My heart basically works with 3 gears. Even if I'm rolling on a beach cruiser down a sidewalk eating a baguette, heart will jump from 70 resting to 150+. Exercising mode is 170s. Any slight gradient and it tops 190.

It's not a reading error either. Chest strap, optical, good ole finger-on-wrist -- all reads the same.

Cardiologist can't really explain it.

Heathpack 

OMG this thread is crazy.

OP, everyone's max HR is different. Young people in general have a higher max HR.


Your max HR is not that important as far as predicting performance. Some people's are higher than other's and it doesn't mean much as far as fitness goes.


Your lactate threshold HR is the important thing that you need to know and have set correctly in Strava in order for it to calculate your zones correctly.


It is completely feasible that you rode with a HR of 178 bpm for 1 hour. Your max HR could be 205 as other have pointed out and your LTHR might be 195, in which case you had a pretty hard ride at 91% intensity. Which would make everything in your Strava files completely reasonable. The only thing that does not correlate is that your perceived exertion was low for a 91% intensity ride. It should have seemed BooYah type of hard but not completely extraordinary.


How much data do you have in Strava? I think you can choose an option to let Strava figure out your max HR and LTHR based on accumulated data. If you've got a bunch of Strava data, I suggest you just do that. If you don't, then I suggest you read about training with HR data and it will start to make sense.

jtaylor996

OP: There are 2 possibilities here:

1. The chest strap data is crap, and reading high. Test/calibrate it.

2. The chest strap data is good. This is where you go to a damn doctor to get a stress test. I cycle with a heart condition. If you're seeing 178 for an hour with the level of effort reported, then something may not be quite right and a stress test will tell you what you need to know. What you are seeing is not wildly more HR that what I might do... but if you're anything like me then you need to go see a doc right away, because my heart ain't no good.

WalksOn2Wheels

Thanks for being direct. I tried to talk sense, but the reality is that I just talk too much.

popeye

What is your resting HR?

C9H13N 

I doubt anything is wrong with your setup. You should definitely stop comparing your HR numbers to zones based on the 220-age formula. It might be close for some people, but you probably aren't one of them.

It doesn't work for me at all. I'm 33 and I can hit 187 bpm with moderate sustained effort on a stationary bike, without vomiting, passing out, or even reaching the point of labored breathing.

In Joe Friel's triathlon training book he makes a point to dismiss the 220-age formula altogether. You should too.

PedalingWalrus

Interesting. Here is mine from this morning:



it was a cold one. 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

topflightpro

This is pretty much my thought as well.

69chevy

I posted similar numbers last year after using a HR monitor for the first time.

I am 36, 6'4" and about 200lbs.

I averaged 20mph for 25 miles and my HR was right at 180 average.

It takes a lot of energy and effort to keep guys over 200# moving at a decent speed and everyone is different.

My doc told me that as long as I am not feeling light headed and can carry a conversation, my heart rate being that high isn't a concern.

He also told me that the Allegra D I was taking for allergies could be affecting my heart rate. I stopped taking it recently as group rides will be starting in my area very soon.

Doge

Perceived effort is the variable that is squishy.

That variable also varies by person and by day for a pile of reasons. Bad perception being one of them.
But peoples systems are not balanced. I can carry a conversation well over AT. I hurt, but can breath. It is my heart that stops going higher. Learning what % of max you are going takes time too.