How much notice do you take of, and how accurate are those heart monitors that are on a lot of cardio machiines? The reason I ask is that doing my HIIT on a crosstrainer this a.m. I saw that my HR was 180, which should be my max (220-age).
Two things: 1. Some cheaper HR monitors are not terrably accurate at extremes, but give good averages and 2. 220-age formula is a total estimation. If you’re older and in great shape (cardiovascular) then your HR is going to be higher than that predicted. Actually the best way to measure max HR is by doing 400 and 800m repeats, and finding your max with a good HR monitor (mid to upper line Polar monitors). Don’t worry about it, unless you’re having chest pain.
What most people forget to tell you about the 220-age formula is that the standard deviation is about 11 beats. So 95% (confidence interval of +/- 2 standard deviations) of 40 year olds will have a max heart rate somwhere between 168 and 202. So you are clearly not at your max heart rate if you can actually sustain the work for a decent period of time.
Wow, I can’t do math. My previous post should read 158-202 for the 95% confidence interval.
These guys are right on…most of the folks reading these posts are going to have much better conditioning than the standard norms. I am 39 and my last max was 196…sprinting home on an 5k…you may also find that your max running, swimming, or cycling will be slightly different. Running will be the highest, followed by cycling, followed by swimming. Sally Edwards has a great on heart rate monitors by the same name. There are rather complex formulas to get pretty good guesses that involve your resting heart rate in the equation. I have found that on a spinning bike or a hill climb I blow way past the 220-age rate. A good monitor (Nike or Polar) is worth every penny invested. Wear it while you lift, especially if you do Meltdown type training and you will see how people can get in shape and say they are not doing aerobic activities…a good 10+ rep set of most compound lifts will get your heart going very well. Hope my rambling is ok…also, I am a dentist so I have some experience in heart rate physiology as well
Rick
They are not very accurate. But more importantly.
"The New York Times Health Page (April 24, 2001): "Maximum Heart Rate Theory Is Challenged." It appears that I’m not alone in my rejection of "The Formula." Believe it or not, the doctor who created the formula shares my skepticism.
The formula was devised in 1970 by Dr. William Haskell. According to the article, Dr. Haskell and his mentor, Dr. Samuel Fox, were trying to determine a safe level of exertion for heart disease patients. They culled data from about 10 studies and came up with the formula more or less off the cuff. Haskell, who is now a professor of medicine at Stanford, says the subjects in the studies were never meant to be a representative sample of the general population; most were under 55 and some were smokers or had heart disease. Nevertheless, “The formula quickly entered the medical literature,” The Times reports. “The absolute numbers took on an air of received wisdom.”
“I’ve kind of laughed about it over the years,” Dr. Haskell told Kolata. “[The formula] was never supposed to be an absolute guide to rule people’s training.”
Those in the know, so to speak, have long realized that the formula is only a rough estimate, and not a very good one at that. Dr. Fritz Hagerman, an exercise physiologist at Ohio University, told The Times that he learned from more than three decades of studying world-class rowers that the whole idea of a formula to predict an individual’s maximum heart rate was ludicrous. Hagerman has seen Olympic rowers in their 20s with maximum heart rates of 220. And he has seen others on the same team and with the same ability, with maximum rates of just 160. The reason, Hagerman explained, is that some athletes push out more blood with each heart beat, and others accomplish the same thing with a faster heart beat.
What guidelines should athletes use? The article doesn’t say, but I have some suggestions. First, you can have your maximum heart rate measured in an exercise physiology laboratory.
Another approach is to use perceived rate of exertion, which is just about as good and certainly more convenient than monitoring heart rate. That’s the method I use most often in my hard aerobic workouts. Listen to your body and it will tell you how hard you’re working. There’s no need to focus on your heart rate. Your breathing and your muscles will tell you all you need to know. With a little experience, you can judge whether you’re working “very hard” or “hardly working,” or somewhere in between the two extremes.
I don’t need a heart rate monitor to tell me that I’m working extremely hard during my treadmill workouts. I record the time, speed and angle of incline in my training dairy and use that to judge my progress from one treadmill workout to the next. I do essentially the same on my rowing and Air-Dyne workouts, using the performance monitors on these machines to track my efforts."
Note: These are the words of C. Bass too busy to research and write today.
Best of Luck.
Yep the 220 - age is very rough,and also amx rates vary according to exercise ie the more muscles tou use like running or ski machines v cycing.
Also yeah the HRM on machines can be iffy. Get yourself a Polar HRM, they are worth their weight in gold
Thanks for the replies, I wasn’t too stressed over it more intrigued, looks a bit like we can put that formula with the food pyrimad.