How often do you push beyond 90% of max Heart Rate?

How often do you push beyond 90% of max HR?

  • Never

    Votes: 9 16.1%
  • Once a month

    Votes: 1 1.8%
  • Once a week

    Votes: 7 12.5%
  • Twice a week

    Votes: 3 5.4%
  • Three times a week

    Votes: 9 16.1%
  • No idea, don’t measure HR during exercise or don’t know max

    Votes: 13 23.2%
  • Every ride

    Votes: 14 25.0%

  • Total voters
    56
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PaulSB

Legendary Member
My HR is generally quite low and your poll doesn't give my option which would be "rarely." My maximum is 178 but it's almost exactly two years since I hit that. I might briefly push 155 on a very hard ride and will sustain mid 140s for long periods if we're absolutely caning it.

For example I rode the Fred Whitton three weeks ago with an average of 124bpm, maximum of 166 on Honister but only around 145/150 on Hardknott and in Zone 2 for 65% (6 hours) of the ride.

Yesterday I did 66 miles with a buddy. He averaged 127, me 97. His max was 151 and mine 130 - at the top of my road straight out of the garage at the bottom of a climb!
 

JtB

Prepare a way for the Lord
Location
North Hampshire
My resting HR is very low, but when I exercise it easily goes beyond “220 - my age”. I asked my cardiologist (note: I have a pacemaker) if this was a problem and he said “not at all, just listen to what your body tells you”. So I no-longer use a HR monitor now when I exercise.
 

alex_cycles

Veteran
Location
Oxfordshire
Most rides, but not all. (Recovery rides and rides with my wife, I'll rarely get out of zones 1-2).
Someone mentioned "220 minus your age" being not very good. Totally agree. 220 minus my age would be 168. My working max is 197, although I have seen 204. I will get into the high 180s, low 190s pretty much every time I ride alone.

I think if you have a heart condition, pushing yourself very hard, very often will likely make it more obvious, but it seems highly doubtful to me that it would actually be the cause of it.
 

CXRAndy

Guru
Location
Lincs
220-age is a flawed calculation for estimating max HR..

There are others which are best. Ultimately you need to do a max effort until you fail to get a good indication of max HR
 

PaulSB

Legendary Member
220-age is a flawed calculation for estimating max HR..

There are others which are best. Ultimately you need to do a max effort until you fail to get a good indication of max HR
I feel the best measure is to find a damn big hill and ride it! My max was 162 for years and then I went and rode Fleet Moss!!:eek:
 

alex_cycles

Veteran
Location
Oxfordshire
220-age is a flawed calculation for estimating max HR..

There are others which are best. Ultimately you need to do a max effort until you fail to get a good indication of max HR

I couldn't agree more. Much more interested in a measurement than some meaningless guesstimate. (I've been wearing a heart rate strap on my rides for about 3 years - self-confessed data freak).
 

Alex321

Veteran
Location
South Wales
I couldn't agree more. Much more interested in a measurement than some meaningless guesstimate. (I've been wearing a heart rate strap on my rides for about 3 years - self-confessed data freak).
Agreed, although the various formulae aren't really even guesstimates. They are rough averages.

Most of us aren't average, we all differ from the average person in a variety of ways.

For heart rate zones to be meaningful, you need at least a good approximation of what your personal max heart rate is, you simlpy can't rely on an average population value.
 
I reach 90% of HRM just bending down to put my shoes on these days...
 

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
At a guess, two or three times a day, though I don't have the numbers. I don't do data. But I do climb two really quite pokey wee hills on my fixie on my daily perambulations, at which points I take it as read that everything's in the red zone. I couldn't speed up if a tiger was on my tail.

I've always assumed, intuitively, that this was 'a good thing'.
Maybe it's like running a engine. It needs a good rev now and then. To keep reliable operation, a good steady run, often
...has always been my take on it. Bit like circuit-training - periods of cruising, periods at the max.
 

byegad

Legendary Member
Location
NE England
Mine is about every 5 yrs, sometimes sooner, when I see which bunch of money grabbing untruthful chisellers have made up the new government.
 

alex_cycles

Veteran
Location
Oxfordshire
Mine is about every 5 yrs, sometimes sooner, when I see which bunch of money grabbing untruthful chisellers have made up the new government.

Doesn't matter who you vote for, we always get the government. :laugh:
Riding with the As today. Only three of us. Nowhere to hide. 68.7% of the time in threshold zone. About half of that was >90%
 

kayakerles

Have a nice ride.
Same here I can't get over 135 even on a turbo :sad:
I don't think my medication would let me push that hard.
Same here, Guys. One thing that sucks about taking BP meds, eh? Except that we have the fake feeling that according to our HR we’re super athletes! I just try not to get to the point that I am completely out of breath and can still talk to myself. :rolleyes:
 

Norry1

Legendary Member
Location
Warwick
90% of Max HR is not actually very high - it corresponds to my Threshold HR, so I'll hit that most rides even if they are not very hard rides.

I just looked at my last 2 week's rides and I hit 90% Max HR on 7 of those (and was quite close on the other 3).
 
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