[Closed] Can someone please explain max HR..

HRmax isn't going to change much beyond a couple of beats as you get fitter. It's a function of ultimately what your body is capable of given your genetics and age.

Your HR for a given power output should fall as you get fitter, and your resting HR should also fall to a point.

Maximum heart rate cannot increase it decreases with age.

As above its pretty fixed. If it changes much you haven't measured it properly in the first place. Run until your eyeballs pop, several time, uphill, then imagine you are being chased by a Lion. Then take our your reading but be careful not to get any vomit on your watch 🙂

Heart rate with increase in (Aerobic) fitness:

- Maximum stays the same
- Minimum goes down
- Heart rate for a given power output goes down

Power output with increase in (Aerobic) fitness:

- Maximum stays (roughly) the same
- Aerobic threshold Increases (the power you can hold for a steady one hour effort)
- Power output for a given heart rate increases

Cool, thats what i thought but all the jibe on the net got me wondering, that and the fact a fellow wattbikers Max increased over the six weeks from 171 - 177..

171-177 is within measurement tolerances.

I bet he didn't want to die when he measured 171 as his Max. Ergo; it wasn't his Max.

So Max HR is not an indicator of fitness, i.e does not improve with fitness! I am 43 with a Max of 173 measured on two seperate Wattbike 3 min tests, now an elderly cycling buddy who is 72 reckons my that cant be right as he says his max is about 168...can this be right or is he talking rubbish/

That could be exactly right. I was recording Max HR (on rides, not tests) of 190 or thereabouts 5 years ago when I was already in my 50s.

I suggest X-C skiing, I thought my max heart rate was around 190 (40 at the time) until I started wearing the monitor for X-C ski races. The alarm went off on each hole shot so I raised the alarm to 200, it still went off.

My gut reaction would be that you probably haven't recorded your max HR. I can't reach mine outside the final 10 metres of a race.
Given that it's so hard to reach it with any accuracy, it might be better to base training around your approximate lactate threshold HR, which is roughly your average HR for 30 minutes flat out.
Also note that your max HR on a bike is not the same as your max HR running. Typically running will be 5-10 bpm higher.

He might be right but equally likely is you didn't reach Max HR on the test. My max is 192 or so (reached in a short crit or similar) but I can't replicate that in training. If not for racing I would think my max was 185.

Edit, double cross posted thanks to crappy phone keyboard taking forever to type with...

I suggest X-C skiing

Your max heart rate is different for different sports. In some, like cycling, the limit of your performance is how much power your leg muscles can generate. Your heart doesn't drive your performance, it responds to it - so because only certain muscles in your legs are working at max your heart doesn't have to work that hard (relatively) before your leg muscles are screaming.

XC ski on the other hand, and even though each muscle group is working comfortably the heart has to supply blood to all of them so has to work harder. It's a bit like having several engines in the same vehicle, all running off the same fuel pump 🙂

When running, there are more muscle groups in use than cycling, between them they use up more oxygen (and generate more co2) than my heart and lungs can supply (or shift). So if I run myself to maximum exertion my heart goes to its max and I feel faint and sick, whereas on the bike I am not puffing and blowing that much but my legs are in huge pain.

In other words, cyclists are generally peripherally limited but runners are generally centrally limited.

The 3 min test is supposed to give you your Max HR though, all seems to be a very grey area to me depending on who you talk too..I ahve emailed the guys at Wattbike so will see what they have to say.

The 3 min test is supposed to give you your Max HR though.

Do you mean this?
https://wattbike.com/uk/guide/cycling_tests/3_minute_aerobic_test

That doesn't give you your maximum HR.
It gives you the maximum HR that you attained during those three minutes of exercise.

Having said all that there is little point in monitoring it.

improvement in fitness will lead to better recovery rate as I understand it -- i.e. time taken to get down to say 50% or the high water mark for that exercise.

No idea what my Max HR is, would be interesting to see if it is in decline along with age (along with everything else) but I'm not that bothered about the process - not bothered as in exercise until you want to die - to be honest!!

No real point in monitoring it more than say yearly. Improved fitness will increase your lactic threshold upwards. which means you can go harder and faster for longer. But for us old guys strength reduces with age and that's also pretty much inevitable even with lots of training. So age is a large factor

Where you will see a drop in maximum heart rate is during say long multi day events. Over a week or ten days you will see your maximum achieved heart rate show a downward trend. That's caused by fatigue and tiredness. That also tells you that before doing a max HR test you should be fully rested etc. If you have a medical see if your cardiologist will conduct the test and give you your MHR.

If you have a medical see if your cardiologist will conduct the test and give you your MHR.

No chance. In France at least they had too many people dropping dead on "tests à l'effort" so instructed cardiologists to stop the test at 220 - age. One of the Asterix artists had previously died doing a test. In my case it means the test ends while we're still chatting about how our kids are doing at school. A friend had a heart attack while out jogging two weeks after doing a test that showed nothing abnormal.

That's caused by fatigue and tiredness.

Not of your heart, though - your legs.

I thought it was a thread about this guy

[img] [/img]

I only asked out of curiousity if your MHR increases as you get fitter as, after Googleing it, there seemed alot of conflicting answers. Wattbike themselves and a few credible articles ive read say your MHR is what it is and wont change, however we had a big debate about it with some of the LBS ride guys last night and they all said theres has increased with fitness....how can there be so much conflict, either it does or it doesnt.

Max HR is *hard* to record, most people have an inbuilt sense of when to back off. Does anyone have a lion they want to rent out?

When people say "Max HR" does this mean the everage over an intense period or just the highest the got to over this period?

I think the thing is when you're not fit you can only push so hard due to being unfit so probably don't achieve a max HR.
When you are fit you can push harder so do get to a better measure of max HR.
It's not so much that it increases with fitness, more that you can ush harder to get to the figure.
At the end of the day it's a measure of how hard you push.
What's to say on a particular day when you do the test that you could have pushed a bit harder?
Difficult to know...

That FB image of the roadie being chased by a bear might come close to Max HR 🙂 no lions involved..

When people say "Max HR" does this mean the everage over an intense period or just the highest the got to over this period?

Highest point that can be achieved. I'd say people saying "my MHR went up 10 beats in a week" just hadn't achieved their MHR previously. In unconvinced by the 3 minute Wattbike test, I was talking to someone about it the other day, it seems to give a proxy for FTP and all sorts of metrics which I just can't believe it can accurately attain from 3 minutes of effort.

Like others I can't get my HR as high in any sort of test as I can in a race.

Make sure your 'max' isn't actually your jersey flapping against the HR strap if doing it outside 😀

More confused than ever....

Put simply your Max HR is the highest HR you've ever seen. So take the highest HR you've seen and use that for your zones. If it goes up markedly (and isn't anomalous) then it's unlikely your max has increased, just that you've tried harder. Readjust your zones accordingly. There's little more to it than that. If you could still see when you did your 3 minute tests, and didn't want to vomit, then you probably didn't achieve your max, perhaps add 1-2% onto the highest HR you achieved and use that for your zones.

It isn't an exact science because no one can ever measure the capacity of your heart, it's not a case of "right, you have now made your heart beat as fast as it possibly can". That's a complete unknown. You could go for a brisk jog and define that as your Max HR, no one can actually [i]prove [/i]otherwise until you go harder.

Don't be. The max really is the max. As in the maximum rate [b]your[/b] heart can go (limited by lung/muscle gas exchange). A strava trace will say max hr but that just means the highest achieved during that exercise, like the highest speed isn't the max speed possible.

The max hr for a person may increase slightly as fitness improves but not massively.

If you use the max hr to set zones to use for training then it all starts to make more sense. My pal has a max hr about 17 beats higher than mine (he's 4yrs older too - see the bit about [b]your[/b] max) but running up a hill together last night we were both in zone 4.3 so exerting the same effort. As you get fitter you can run up the same hill at the same speed (ie same effort) but at a lower hr.

More confused than ever....

Max HR just means the point at which your heart simply won't beat any faster. Not the point at which you die or anything like that. Just the fastest it can beat.

If you can hit 200bpm but regardless of what you do it never hits 201bpm, then its highly likely that 200bpm is your max HR.

some of the LBS ride guys last night and they all said theres has increased with fitness....how can there be so much conflict, either it does or it doesnt.

There is conflict because max HR is almost impossible to test. What the club guys are probably seeing is the highest HR they achive over a ride/race increase. This may be because as their legs get fitter they can generate more power which needs more fuel. Their heart obliges and beats faster, it's always been able to do it but never been asked for that much fuel before.

British Cycling don't recomend trying to find your max heart rate. Instead you calculate your functional threshold HR and base your zones on this. Your functional threshold is the average HR over a 20 min maximum effort.

My functional threshold is 168 bpm which I can sustain for 20 mins which gives a theoretical max as 210bpm. I've never recorded above 185bpm on a ride which suggests it's my legs and not my heart that are limiting my performance.

My functional threshold is 168 bpm which I can sustain for 20 mins which gives a theoretical max as 210bpm.

Assuming you mean [url= http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/membership/article/20120925-Power-Calculator-0 ]this[/url], I'm not sure you can suggest the upper limit of Z5 is your maximum, as that's a massive jump up from your "FTHR".

I averaged 191bpm for 20 minutes on Sunday, that suggests a maximum of 229 bpm, which it most certainly isn't!

The max really is the max. As in the maximum rate your heart can go (limited by lung/muscle gas exchange).

I'm not going to spend hours Googling, I'll leave that to those who want to shoot me down. Heart muscle doesn't work in exactly the same way as other muscles and isn't as dependent on blood oxygen levels. It continues to function fine for short periods with low blood oxygen levels. It responds not only to the body's demand for oxygen but also signals to the brain from your environment and hormones produced by the brain as a response.

When rallying my heart rate was around 150 on the start line when I was sitting down doing absolutely nothing other than measuring my heart rate. In X-C ski races it didn't drop much below the 160 I used to warm up to in the five minutes left to the start. The brain reacts to stress by producing steroids and stress hormones that raise heart rate even when the blood is perfectly oxygenated.

So, to see your max heart rate, you need a combination of high mental stress and an effort that lasts long enough to drop your blood oxygen levels to critically low levels but not so long that the heart's ability to function at full capacity with low oxygen supply is exhausted.

Going through reaching 200 at 40 on skis. I was already over 150bpm on the start line, the gun going off (another stress) was followed by all out effort with maximum concentration to avoid crashing or having ski sticks broken - a series of near catastrophes and anger inducing behaviour from others- highly stressful. At the end of the the hole shot the first short climb came so having found a place in the line of skiiers I had to maintain maximum effort to avoid the risk of being overtaken and being brought down with a ski stick between my skis. As I crested the climb the alarm was beeping, my whole body sending polite signal to back off, my vision swimming and my head "prickling" - I tucked up into a schuss and concentrated on staying upright with failing balance, exhausted muscles and lungs burning from breathing as much freezing air as possible.

I'm sure that if I'd had people behind shooting live rounds at me the extra stress would have yielded a few extra bpm. So you can get close but never really know with certainty what your max is.

People worry what may happen at max, that your heart may explode or something. It's not that, just that it's the limit of efficiency as the volume of blood being moved isn't enough to supply oxygen to the muscles. The working muscles, not the heart muscle. If there's not enough blood going to the heart muscle your suffering angina or a heart attack.

I do wonder about the accuracy of devices measuring the beats and whether you can be certain it was 198 or 200bpm

No idea about the accuracy, I don't know what the exact figure was either, just more than 200. It was before you could download the results and I wasn't going to try and read the thing. All I can say is that the alarm (which reliably sounded whenever the preset was reached) was set at 200 and the thing was beeping merrily towards the end of the maximum effort then stopped during the schuss and never sounded for the rest of the race when I'd have been in the 165-185 range depending on the terrain.

I've had a heart rate test conducted by a cardiologist, fully wired up to an ECG. Stuck on a treadmill and told to walk. Every 5 minutes the treadmill got faster and it was conducted to failure. I hit 190 despite the cardiologist assuming I would hit 183 as that's 220 minus age and the guideline. I'd already told him that from my last 5k race.

My point being you need two things to find your max HR

1) Extreme effort to failure. I was staggering, seeing stars, the works after that test. As I am after a 5k race if I've had a good burn-up at the end.
2) Accurate measurement. Your average off-the-shelf Garmin HR isn't accurate enough and will spike. A proper medical ECG is the best tool.

re the 220 minus the age . i have read that the years after 30 only count as half . so if you are 40 , 185 .

Maybe but I've never seen more than 168 and I'm 45. Still within the normal range apparently.

220 - age is the roughest of rough guesses. I've got a mate who wins triathlons in his age group and he's never seen 170. On the occasion I've matched him on the bike we can be riding along at the same speed, me at 165, him at 140.

56 and mines 178, thats measured by a cardiologists remained fairly static. I see similar results on my garmin over the year. Its high normal he says in a wide range. Were all different this isnt like MPH on a speedo dont expect to match anyone else. The formulas are just a guide, I should be 164