Maximum Heart Rate Zones....

[screenman]

Good preparation for a max test is too pull your finger nails off with pliers, that will start to get close to how unpleasent it can be. Joking aside you should only feel sick for a few minutes afterwards, standing up will take slightly longer and having a conversation slightly longer than that.

Have fun, I forgot have somebody else take the numbers as you will not be able to see the high one's yourself.

 

[screenman]

Here is a couple of ways of doing a test,

http://www.timetrialtraining.co.uk/S6MaxHeartRateTests.htm

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Good preparation for a max test is too pull your finger nails off with pliers, that will start to get close to how unpleasent it can be. Joking aside you should only feel sick for a few minutes afterwards, standing up will take slightly longer and having a conversation slightly longer than that.

Have fun, I forgot have somebody else take the numbers as you will not be able to see the high one's yourself.

Suddenly 220 minus your star sign doesn't sound so implausible after all.

 

[Simon Head]

This is where we're going to disagree because I think you should establish a realistic max heart rate that you will achieve on a 250 metre sprint. I really do believe this ought to be an average of 3 results over for example 15 seconds.
Yes you will get higher heart rates but these will be peaks limited to one offs not averages.
This will give you a useable max

 

[screenman]

This is where we're going to disagree because I think you should establish a realistic max heart rate that you will achieve on a 250 metre sprint. I really do believe this ought to be an average of 3 results over for example 15 seconds.
Yes you will get higher heart rates but these will be peaks limited to one offs not averages.
This will give you a useable max

Where would you use this sub max max.?

 

[uclown2002]

This is where we're going to disagree because I think you should establish a realistic max heart rate that you will achieve on a 250 metre sprint. I really do believe this ought to be an average of 3 results over for example 15 seconds.
Yes you will get higher heart rates but these will be peaks limited to one offs not averages.
This will give you a useable max

 

[Tin Pot]

Max HR is the fastest your heart can pump. Once it gets to that rate, it simply will not go any faster. Unsurprisingly, this essential organ does not simply keep going faster and faster until it pops like in a cartoon.

Testing it usually involves words like "sick", "dizzy", "faint", "tears" and "vomiting".

Anything else is flim flam*

To date I've never got to maxHR on a bike despite tears and nearly collapsing.


*Joe Friel posits a seperate/distinct MaxHR-for-cycling in his training protocols.

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

This is where we're going to disagree because I think you should establish a realistic max heart rate that you will achieve on a 250 metre sprint. I really do believe this ought to be an average of 3 results over for example 15 seconds.
Yes you will get higher heart rates but these will be peaks limited to one offs not averages.
This will give you a useable max

My HR wouldn't be anywhere near my known and tested max (204) after a 15 second sprint - in fact my HR would be lagging well behind and still climbing after your 15 sec period is over.

"realistic max" based on an average of 3 data samples as per your example would put any point of MHR testing and training based on zones so far off I might as well not bother to begin with.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Which formula should be used

The common formula was devised in 1970 by Dr. William Haskell, then a young physician in the federal Public Health Service and his mentor, Dr. Samuel Fox, who led the service's program on heart disease. They were trying to determine how strenuously heart disease patients could exercise.

In preparation for a medical meeting, Dr. Haskell culled data from about 10 published studies in which people of different ages had been tested to find their maximum heart rates. The subjects were never meant to be a representative sample of the population, said Dr. Haskell, who is now a professor of medicine at Stanford. Most were under 55 and some were smokers or had heart disease. On an airplane traveling to the meeting, Dr. Haskell pulled out his data and showed them to Dr. Fox. ''We drew a line through the points and I said, 'Gee, if you extrapolate that out it looks like at age 20, the heart rate maximum is 200 and at age 40 it's 180 and at age 60 it's 160,'' Dr. Haskell said. At that point, Dr. Fox suggested a formula: maximum heart rate equals 220 minus age.

But, exercise physiologists said, these data, like virtually all exercise data, had limitations. They relied on volunteers who most likely were not representative of the general population. ''It's whoever came in the door,''. . . . .it was clear from the scattered data points that maximum heart rates could vary widely from the formula. ''If it says 150, it could be 180 and it could be 120".

But the formula quickly entered the medical literature. Even though it was almost always presented as an average maximum rate, the absolute numbers took on an air of received wisdom in part, medical scientists said, because the time was right . . . . there was a desire for a simple formula to estimate maximum heart rates. Soon, there was a worldwide heart-rate monitor industry, led by Polar Electro Inc, of Oulu, Finland, selling more than 750,000 monitors a year in the USA and citing the ''220 minus your age'' formula as a guide for training. The formula became increasingly entrenched, used to make graphs that are posted on the walls of health clubs and in cardiology treadmill rooms, prescribed in information for heart patients and inscribed in textbooks.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

This is where we're going to disagree because I think you should establish a realistic max heart rate that you will achieve on a 250 metre sprint. I really do believe this ought to be an average of 3 results over for example 15 seconds.
Yes you will get higher heart rates but these will be peaks limited to one offs not averages.
This will give you a useable max

You haven't tried this, have you? At the end of the sprint your HR will be lower than after 10 seconds of rest after the sprint.
Max is max. Average is average of what?

 

[Crackle]

I've only done a ramp test once, there's no way I'm going to repeat it, never mind farking average it.

 

[Ajax Bay]

I don't think you'll reach your MaxHR by testing on a bike. The way to test it when running is to warm up properly to the bottom of a decent steady hill at least a km long. Attack the hill, gradually increasing the pace as you climb unleashing a superlative sprint half a minute before you think you'll not be able to go on much longer. This will hurt: if it's not hurting you aren't working hard enough. Wear a heart rate monitor with the record interval set to the minimum. When recovered (!) review the data. The biggest number is your MaxHR. I have no data to back this up (other than not being able to replicate my running max on a bike) but I suspect that on bike testing will not get one's HR as high but a well warmed up sustained effort up a one chevron hill with a good surface will get you close. My MaxHR has dropped 15-20 beats in as many years. I suggest it is also important to know your resting heart rate as it's the range eg 40 up to 190 that is a more valuable than just MaxHR, when setting zones.

 

[S-Express]

This is where we're going to disagree because I think you should establish a realistic max heart rate that you will achieve on a 250 metre sprint. I really do believe this ought to be an average of 3 results over for example 15 seconds.
Yes you will get higher heart rates but these will be peaks limited to one offs not averages.
This will give you a useable max

Then conduct some testing, write a paper on it, submit it for peer review and then present your findings at the next available exercise physiology conference. In the meantime, everyone else will still use the long established and conventional definition of HR max.

 

[S-Express]

I don't think you'll reach your MaxHR by testing on a bike.

For cycle training, your MHR on a bike will be the MHR number you need to use. It will be different for other sports.

I suggest it is also important to know your resting heart rate as it's the range eg 40 up to 190 that is a more valuable than just MaxHR

RHR tells you nothing useful in terms of training zones.

 

[zigzag]

This is where we're going to disagree because I think you should establish a realistic max heart rate that you will achieve on a 250 metre sprint. I really do believe this ought to be an average of 3 results over for example 15 seconds.
Yes you will get higher heart rates but these will be peaks limited to one offs not averages.
This will give you a useable max

this would be way too easy, and give the meaningless reading - what's the point? ramp test or vo2max test (visualise a calamity waiting to happen if you fail to give your absolute best) are reliable ways to find out max hr within few beats per second. it's usually a team effort as it's too painful to get to that level on your own.

ps. ftp test, if done properly, can also achieve maximum hr value.