Heart Rate Help

ShaggyRS6

ShaggyRS6

ShaggyRS6

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11 Jan 2009
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Location
Kent UK & New Jersey USA
Is there someone who know's a little more about fitness than me (not hard) help me out with my heart rate.

I managed to get the heart rate monitor working this evening. It works in tandem with the GPS.

But I have no idea what the results mean. i.e. you can have charts that compare the rate to your climb, speed, distance. Basically I want to know if clinically I should be dead :) in all seriousness I want to know if my heart rate is ok.

Pls see the ride hear. http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7962273
 
The old rule is/was "220 - your age" so for me, its 220-40, so my max heart rate is 180bpm.
Did a ramp test last year and put my max at 178bpm.

I hit 180bpm every so often out for a ride and when its very cold my polar throws a wobbler and claims my hr is 230bpm :rolleyes:

there are plenty of books on working with heart rates.
When ive been doing turbo sessions i try to work no more than Z3 which is 147bpm max. Flat out TT sessions should see me around 165bpm max.

Looking at your chart, 138bpm average aint to bad.

Just found the details of my fastest ride home, avg heart rate was 159bpm over 44mins with a max of 174bpm with average speed of 19mph over 13.9miles.
 
ShaggyRS6 said:
Is there someone who know's a little more about fitness than me (not hard) help me out with my heart rate.

I managed to get the heart rate monitor working this evening. It works in tandem with the GPS.

But I have no idea what the results mean. i.e. you can have charts that compare the rate to your climb, speed, distance. Basically I want to know if clinically I should be dead :) in all seriousness I want to know if my heart rate is ok.

Pls see the ride hear. http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7962273
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Basically your HR needs to follow your level of exertion. Be low when resting and at it's highest when going all out. You also want it to drop fairly quickly after exercise.

Looking at your motionbased page - your av HR was 138, which seems ok if your Max HR is 185 - taking it easy were you :p
 
You can use your heart rate to judge the intensity of your exercise, and whether you need to push yourself harder. Back when I had an injury when I was a cross country/long distance runner, I went on the cycle bike for a while to keep fit and I would use the heart rate monitor to judge how hard I was working out. For my age, 200BPM is 100% intensity. I've been told you should aim for approximately 90% of your max heart rate for high intensity training. So for me, it is around 180BPM.
 
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I think you have mistaken what I said. 100% of your maximum heart rate for someone at around the age of 20 is 200BPM. The higher the age, the lower that figure should be.

This isn't your absolute physical maximum, but beyond that it isn't very good for you.

Read up on high-intensity training.
 
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BlackDragon said:
I think you have mistaken what I said. 100% of your maximum heart rate for someone at around the age of 20 is 180BPM. The higher the age, the lower that figure should be.

This isn't your absolute physical maximum, but beyond that it isn't very good for you.

Read up on high-intensity training.
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Given what you have written, it's not me that should be reading up ;)

Each to their own, but I do have a little knowledge on the subject gained from a little bit of running.
 
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firstborn said:
Given what you have written, it's not me that should be reading up ;)

Each to their own, but I do have a little knowledge on the subject gained from a little bit of running.
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I don't have that much knowledge in it either but I was a serious long distance/cross country running for 2 years.

I don't think my figure is wrong, have a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate#Target_heart_rate

Back on topic. Work out what your max heart rate should be for high intensity training (above link has some info on that). Don't always aim to reach and maintain your heart rate at such a level because I read somewhere that if you do that regularly (3+ times a week I think) then you don't really benefit from it and makes it harder for muscles to repair. I also remember that you should do up to 20mins at max intensity. Low intensity training is something like 60-80% of your max heart rate, and I guess that would form the bulk of your exercise.

When I was on the bike I would start off 15mins on a comfortable difficulty level to get warmed up, keeping the RPM at about 100. Then I would gradually increase the difficulty level a few notches, but not too much, and try and maintain the RPM at about 110. At this point my heart rate was about 160 or so. For the final 15-20mins I would increase the RPM to about 120 and my heart rate would normally be about 180RPM. If it went any higher I would slow down a little to try and keep it at 180.

This was supposed to be a high intensity session as recommended by my coach.

But yeah, you should use your heart rate to as an indicator for how hard you are pushing yourself.
 
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firstborn said:
Which brings me back to where did this figure of 180 come from that you said shouldn't be exceeded?

I'm sorry, but comments like that are nonsense and you've been misinformed. IMHO.
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As I said before, 180BPM was the figure I was aiming for as that was nearish to my max intensity for my age. That figure is going to vary depending on your existing fitness levels and your age.

http://physicaltherapy.about.com/od/enduranceexercises/qt/MaximumHR.htm

http://straighthealth.com/pages/tools/maxhr.html

The above would give figures of around 200, and 180BPM is about 90% of my max heart rate.

Just enter is resting heart rate of 60 and age of 20 for the calculator.

Please could you provide some sources as to why I am wrong rather than telling me flat out that I am wrong, it isn't useful for the OP.
 
You said that "I'm told the max you should let your heart get to is about 180BPM" which came across as a blanket statement applying to all - it was this I had a probelm with.

And both those links are way off the mark for me in calculating max HR etc.
 
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firstborn said:
You said that "I'm told the max you should let your heart get to is about 180BPM" which came across as a blanket statement applying to all - it was this I had a probelm with.

And both those links are way off the mark for me in calculating max HR etc.
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Aah ok my bad :) I didn't intend it to sound like a blanket statement, so I have edited my previous posts to reflect that :) I was pretty tired last night when I wrote that
 
BlackDragon said:
Aah ok my bad :) I didn't intend it to sound like a blanket statement, so I have edited my previous posts to reflect that :) I was pretty tired last night when I wrote that
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Apologies for me being an arse :)

Anyway back OT, the best approach for heart rate training for me is; measure HRrest and HRmax (to give HRreserve), and use the Karvonen method to calculate the various levels of intensity required for specific workouts.

see: http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hrm1.htm

You do need fairly accurate measurements for resting and max and wouldn't rely on the formulas for max tbh.
 
The other to remember is that heart rate varies as you get hotter, more so sat on a turbo trainer, plus the lag as you change intervals.
My training sessions have the heart rate to work to along with the equivalent "Borg level".
So for me it was start of the session watching the heart rate then ditch the HRM and just go of the Borg level.

Oh and best tip i found to finding your max heart rate, "if your not seeing elvis or the pearly gates, you aint working hard enough" :p
 
Shoei said:
The other to remember is that heart rate varies as you get hotter, more so sat on a turbo trainer, plus the lag as you change intervals.
My training sessions have the heart rate to work to along with the equivalent "Borg level".
So for me it was start of the session watching the heart rate then ditch the HRM and just go of the Borg level.

Oh and best tip i found to finding your max heart rate, "if your not seeing elvis or the pearly gates, you aint working hard enough" :p
Click to expand...

Aye, account for heat when training, but log temps etc for future ref.

I've done lab based maximal tests - the end isn't pretty :d
 
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