Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Max Heart Rate

I was talking to Eric the other day and I know he had questions regarding Heart Rate. This book I am reading seems to have a ton of good information in it. It will take some time for me to digest it and make it so that it applies to where I am.

I figured I'd start out with this simple equation for you though.

205.8 - (.685 x age) So 37 years 180bpm for 40 years 178bpm.
He figures this number can be off by as much as 14bpm and also he has found that heart rate "zones" are sport specific. Meaning your swimming zone will be different than your running zone.

Friel included this formula in the book. Though he prefers using his own training system to actually determine not your MAX heart rate but your Lactate Threshold. Which pros use all sorts of equipment which can precisely find this for them. In his book he goes through a process of increasing activity and taking notes along the way. Which after you finish you review and work it out under his guidelines. (I'll go into details about this if you are interested).

To get back to the Max Heart Rate and what most people use as a general guideline, the following link explains it a bit more. Heart Rate Training Zones

I have to say according to that chart and using that formula. Much of my training the last 4 months has been in my 80%-90% zone. Maybe this was wrong to do?! Or is it this chart can't possibly be used in my situation (Mr Couch Potato).
I can tell you that even though my heart rate was often quite high. I never felt that I pushed myself to "burning muscles" or gasping for air. I had no idea what my heart rate was. It wasn't until recently that I started wearing the monitor. Now I've got a million questions and I think this Friel book will have the answers for me.

Well this post has become somewhat of a ramble. My main objective was to give Eric a bit of a basic guideline. I hope to follow this up with some posts regarding "cardiac drift" and "recovery rate". These are two areas I really need to improve and I'm hoping the book will address these issues so I can see how to best improve them.

2 comments:

Ethanol said...

My biggest difficulty is breathing when my heart rate gets to 150+. I've never been good at it and I still can't get control of it. I suppose I'll see what happens as my conditioning improves.

catmarlson said...

I was surprised how much the In through the nose, out through the mouth helped regulate my breathing.
Early on I didn't spend much time in the "gasping" zone. Going up that fast that early just cuts your workout time. It would be better to ride daily than to push to where you can't ride the next day.

I was also surprised how much everything changed after 2 weeks of regular excercise. Your muscles need to learn how to take oxygen, until then your heart is working like crazy. Then once they adapt things start to seem possible.