Simple Heart Rate Recovery Test. Is this valid?
 

Found this in the 50+ forum. What do you think?


Heart rate recovery is one of the best indicators of cardiac fitness. Of course, there are many, many other indicators and techniques, but this is simple and easy.

"1. Accelerate your heartrate through running, biking, or other method to an anerobic level (a pace you can do for only 20-30 seconds... such as a full sprint)
2. Measure the heart rate with a monitor at the end of the sprint.
3. Recover for 60 seconds by walking or biking slowly (do not stop moving!)
4. Measure the heart rate after 60 seconds and subtract that number from the peak.

The key:
POOR less than 12 Beats Per Minute (BPM) recovery
FAIR 12-20
Good 20-30
Excellent 30-40
Over 40 is outstanding.
The recovery rate is important because this is a measure of the soundness of our cardiovascular system and not just our heart health.

A recovery rate of greater than 35 BPM indicates almost no risk of sudden death from heart disease!

12 or less increases the risk dramatically. People with this issue need to consult with their Doctor before exercising!"

Link doesn't work. But heck yes. If I took my HR up to over 160 (near max for this geezer) and it didn't recover to 120 in a minute that would not be good. I've heard this before, but I think those of us who bike a lot will all rate very well, so we don't bother to think about it. Probably has something to do with blood flow in the coronary arteries. I hope mine are the size of sewer pipes.

Other HR recovery thoughts:
If I'm on a long hard ride, stop for lunch or a long break, get back on the bike and see a HR of over 100 just standing there, I know I'm screwed. I've overcooked it.
The best way to keep track of your state of recovery or exhaustion is to take one's HR in the morning, first lying down for 5 minutes, then standing for 2 minutes. The standing HR after 2 minutes is the important one. If it's up 10 beats or more over well-rested, you're screwed. If the supine resting HR is up 6-8 beats, that's also a sign you need rest. IME these HRs are more meaningful if one gets up, does one's toilet, and gets dressed before taking them.

You're going to do 8000 miles this year? Way to go!

I was fortunate a few years ago to participate in a study at Stanford that was looking for correlation between exercise and heart rate disease in older folks. They did a sub-maximal HR recovery test on which I scored very well. The real value of the testing was electrocardiography at rest and during exercise. They also look at the aorta and femoral arteries. They didn't find an plaque (I'm in my mid-60's). The exercise portion was done lying on a padded table with a cycling apparatus that measure power. The researcher could examine my heart both during and immediately following the exercise. If anyone ever gets the opportunity to participate in such a study It's quite an experience.

I had a chance to try this Tuesday and scored a 38 bpm. I'm going to try again tomorrow.

If it's in the 50+ then it's got to be golden.

I checked this weekend's group ride and went from 179 to 126 in 1min. I wish I believed the zero risk part. My father had a heart attack at age 54 and while I'm in better shape than he was having a family history of CVD is never good.

I looked on Pubmed for some research supporting the original quote but didn't find anything directly applicable. If anyone has a citation I'd be interested in reading it.

Hmm. I suspect that there is a big difference between being at little or no risk of sudden death from heart disease, and being at little or no risk of heart disease. However, being in the sort of shape you're in is all good.

No, don't believe the "no sudden death" thing. My club has had at least 3 died-on-the-ride incidents, good climbers all. Then there was Ed Burke . . . I still use software he helped with.

Yes, I've heard enough stories of very fit individuals having significant issues with their hearts that I don't take a lot of comfort in just being fit.

You must belong to a big club?

10,000 people. So that's a very small percentage! However a lot of the members don't ride all that much. We lose enough riders to that and accidents that the whole biking thing bothers me a little. The alternative is certainly worse, though. So far I have both collarbones and all shoulder ligaments intact and a resting HR this morning of 47. Latest hassle is ITBS in one leg. I'm taking the week off hoping it will fix itself. :)

I'm 60 and have strange, very high numbers. My MHR is 192, RHR 52, LT172 based on the 2x20 test - in fact I can do 3x20 at this pace. Recovery from max about 45bpm in 1 min. Sounds good, I consider myself in good shape. But still I'm slow - not among the slowest at races, but far from the top in my age group. Seems I lack power. Tried weight training, it didn't improve my speed. What do you think?

Wow! You have vastly different numbers than I do (age 66).

I last measured it almost a year ago, but that's after 7K miles of riding and I doubt it's changed much). I don't race but I ride hard, do intervals occasionally, etc. My resting HR is around 65, my max HR observed is 160, and my LT HR is 148 (I doubt it's changed much). My HR (I have a Garmin 705) only drops about 10% after one minute (about 15% after two minutes). And that's true today, after about 11K miles over 22 months (18 months of riding - I lost some months to snow/ice and surgery).

Maybe my numbers will improve as I ride more years?

The original post is seriously flawed, however, because it's using HR drop by beats per minute, not percentage. A 30 BPM drop is very different from a max of 210 (14%) than it is from 150 (20%). That said, however, I will admit that my 17-19 BPM drop is "Fair" which seems about right. At 66, I have found recovery to be slower by all measures.

Some people's HRs are higher. It's genetic. I don't know if a smaller heart pumping fast delivers the same blood volume as a larger heart, but one of the fastest women I've ridden with had a very fast HR for her age. Didn't seem to hurt her performance any.

How long have you been training seriously? What sort of weight training did you do? What's your average weekly training volume? How long (hours) are your longest weekly rides?

Started cycling 6/1/2010 at 64 - lethargy and 247# weight triggered my foray into cycling
2010 (my first 7 months) = 5,000 miles (I went a little nuts)

Great work hobkirk!

How long have you been training seriously? What sort of weight training did you do? What's your average weekly training volume? How long (hours) are your longest weekly rides?

I started training with a HRM 10 yrs ago, but didn't follow a yearly plan, just trained for 3-4 races a year, starting 5-6 weeks before the race. I ride year long, however.
Went to the gym 3 days a week for a year, used free weights and machines. Not too much weight, 3x10-15 reps each exercise.
I train about 9 hrs per week before a race, plus about 5 hrs of easy commuting. 3 days of 60-90 mins plus a long ride (5+ hrs) on Sunday.

Hmmm. Had a look at today's ride data with this thread in mind. After cresting the longest climb of the day my HR dropped from 166 to 109 in 53 seconds. I'm inclined to think that this means I'm getting into reasonable shape, but nothing more significant than that.

Do you use a periodized training program? What sort of intervals do you do? Do you download your HR data? If so, how much Z4 and Z5 do you see per week when you are training?

Re weight training, I found I got no results unless I worked to failure once/week. I got good results both from following the Friel progression and from just doing sets of 30, twice a week, one day not full-on but almost, one day enough weight for failure.

Yes I use a simple periodized plan.I've done all sorts of intervals, from 15 sec sprints to 20 min TTs. For intervals longer than 3 mins, I usually recover for 1/2 interval time.
My Polar HRM is a simple one and doesn't record data. But I'm sure I spend at least 90 mins in Z4 and possibly about 10 mins in Z5.

I did this workout today:
15 mins warm up - 100 to 170
30 mins at 173, last 5 mins at 175-177
10 mins recovery at 120-130
30 mins at 173-175, last 5 mins 177-180
10 mins recovery at 120-130
10 mins at 140

What's more depressing is watch your good recovery rate go to heck when you get ill, and then encouraging as it improves right along side of the whatever going away.
I was in the 35'ish; got the bronchitis going good and it crashed to below 15, and now its coming back up. Interesting at least to me.

Anyone have any idea how beta blockers affect this?

Last summer after I took up cycling, I would drop from 160 to 110 in a minute with no issues. Later on in Fall I could rarely even get the HR up past 140 anymore, dropping to 100 in a minute.

I slacked off over winter, and gained 40 pounds, and my blood pressure skyrocketed. I would get up to 180 doing what I did at 140 last year, recovering to 130 in a minute. Doc put me on Beta Blockers, and now I can hardly get my HR above 120. If I really give everything I've got and I rested the day before I can push 140, but 90% of the time 120 is my limit. In either case, I recover down to around 110 in a minute, though the last week or so I've been dropping to 100.

So should I be worried that my recovery rate has gone from 50's to 10's, or is that expected of the beta blockers?

Lowered heart rate and a corresponding decrease in VO2max are known side effects of beta blockers. Lowering the recovery rate isn't. Though studies usually define the high risk recovery rate as 12 bpm/minute. They don't really say what happens to people whose recovery rates were in the 50's before beta blockers.