Ever had your max heart rate measured?

[altagirl]

The plan is looking like this: 1) Find hill 2) Strap on HR monitor and run balls out up said hill until complete bodily failure 3) Look at watch and scratch number in the dirt before passing out

Conveniently, my HRM will let me scroll through average and max HR in the previous session once I hit the stop button. Easier than trying to remember things as I'm about to pass out.

[myles long]

While I think every body is different it seems from my experiences that the formula caclulations are relatively accurate. The reading I have done seems to say that you max heart rate is more contingent upon your age than anything else, including you level of fitness...i.e. out of shape over wieght person would have roughly the same max heart rate as someone of average wieght and average fitness. I think that using the formula is a good guideline but you also have to know how your own body acts and especially for the Shape of Your Life workouts you will need to adjust the levels of the workouts to fit yourself. Also their method of getting the LT by taking a average heart rate over a 30 minute workout sets a good benchmark. It migh not be 100% accurate of your LT but its close and the idea of the workouts is to test yourself over time at that same level and see if your fitness improves. So as long as your benchmark is a benchmark you can measure your progress.


p.s.
i am in week 1 of month 3 on the shape of your life and it is a great workout plan.

[L7]

Does your max go down as you get fitter though? I thought it was more that your resting HR goes down and your recovery rate increases. My resting HR has gone down about 5bpm in the past 6 months, but I haven't thought about if my max changed since this summer.

No if anything you MIGHT get your max to go up slightly but like Viva said get more work out of a given heart rate. What I meant is I've known people with a genetically low max heart rate but when really fit had very low resting rates. They couldn't get their heart rate up that high but still put out the work.

[L7]

Actually, I found something that sounds pretty good. Basically you warm up, then run flat out on a level course for 3 minutes. Follow that with 10 minutes of fast walking or gossip jogging before going flat out for another 3 minutes. Repeat one more time. Your MHR is your heart rate just before you finish the last 3 minute interval. Sounds good to me and sure beats paying for a treadmill test.

The whole idea of taking your heart rate up slowly is a big part. Plan A will probably end up no where near max as it will come undone with lactic overload first.

The more tests you do the better you'll get at them just by virtue of pacing up to that max output.

[4matic]

Has anyone tried to simply measure their pulse during an activity? Just stop, measure for 10 seconds, multiply by 6. Never tried it, but it ought to be fairly close to actual HR.

This is what we do in swimming. We take pulse counts during and after every set. Our test for MHR is 8 times 5 minute swim on 8 minute intervals Maximum effort measuring distance and pulse after each swim. Results recorded each time.

[telepariah]

The formulas are way off in my case. I am reasonably fit but not like a lot of people I know who have a lot more time to exercise.

After a bout of tachycardia a couple of years ago I went to a cardiologist. He gave me two nuclear stress tests. At age 47 I rean on his treadmill at the steepest incline for 30 minutes with a steady HR of 209 and blood pressure that never got higher than 130/90. After the second test, he just told me I was abnormal and he didn't have a machine that could stress me. He had no explanation for why my maximum heart rate was so high when my normal resting HR was below 50. But he said I was safe and that I didn't need to come back. I can't run fast anymore but that has more to do with wear ad tear on the bones and joints than my ability to use oxygen. I am fine in the skin track--not the fastest and not the slowest.

[altachic]

If ya'll haven't looked at DTM's link to "Shape of your Life," you should. I too am doing this once ski season is over, so we'll be working on this together, which is a huge help. I love the fact that this program has so much to offer and explains so much in detail as to why you are doing what you are doing...and I also love that it has a lot of plyometrics and strength training.

Good goal for sure to complete.