Changing Max HR

I am just wondering what is going on whith my HR

when i first got the hr i got the max up to 206
as i got fitter the max seemed to be 195
it then when up to 202
now my max is 196 in a race but in training its hard to get up to 190. whats going on? My resting HR has also gone from 40 to 33 also so i guess there is till the same range of beats but why does the max change?

 

?

 

Maximum HR decreases with training, primarily due to an increase in plasma volume, which occurs quite rapidly with training. This effect is also reversed rapidly, e.g., when you are ill and have a couple of weeks of from training.

Ric

 

thats interesting to hear , so the lower the resting hr the lower the max becomes. whats the lowest resting hr that is posible?. Is this a indication of performance or not? eg would the pro with the lowest resting hr be better than the other? thanks.

 

HR in any shape or form is not indicative of performance. in fact all it really tells you is what your heart is doing! it's useful as a vague proxy for intensity, but changes due to a variety of internal and external factors, e.g., at a constant (low) workload HR can increase or decrease due to various stimulii, such as caffiene, temperature, if you've just eaten, stress, someone attractive, etc.

Resting HR, which does decrease as well through training, doesn't have any bearing on performance. When the TdF riders go through their pre-TdF check up some of them have RHR in the 60's.

Resting HR doesn't lower max HR, they both lower but necessarily together, and RHR might continue to lower even when max HR doesn't. Furthermore, even when they've stopped lowering you continue to get fitter.

Ric

 

http://www.hhp.ufl.edu/keepingfit/ARTICLE/indurain.HTM

This link is the most authoratative I could find for the much-repeated fact that Indurain had a resting heart rate of 28. It usefully predicts that he will win the 1993 Tour.

 

Ricsterns resume is good

Rest heart rate can not be used to compare between individuals. For one individual it can be usefull(to look for progress in fitness, overtraining signs, signs of illness) if you bear in mind that there are lots of other factors that have their influence.

About the 60's measurements for top cyclist. First 60 is high and the number of top cyclist with 60 will be low(if not non existing). The circumstances are important. I remember Andrei Tchmil stating when asked why his rest heart rate at the check was so high(the year he had (one off) the highest off all), he stated I walked up to the 3d floor. The numbers of this TDF check up are a nice to know but aren't that exact, its a general(modest) check up not top scientific results.

For the person who asked about lowest I know a guy who had 22. There will be lower ones I believe, Low rates can become dangerous and aren't absolute mesureaments for preformance, just as max rates.

 

... although if it's low enough, it is a good indicator that you're dead.

 

not 100% on topic but if anyones interested...

some of the lowest RHRs belong to olympic shooters who get their heart rates down to about 20 bpmwhile competing so that they have time to take shots between heart beats

 

Interesting, I must admit I was fasinated watching the last Winter Olympics, particularly the duathlon event that combines cross country skiing and target shooting.

How those athletes manage to aim and hit their targets whilst their hearts are racing away at 200 bpm is beyond comprehension.

Leon

 

Easy, they just shoot between heartbeats. Or maybe they miss.

 

you can't shoot between heartbeats in a duathalon, you've got to be down around 50-60 bpm to even try that

 

Hi,

This reply is kind of late but here you go -

My max increased during the season - for example on similar rides I saw my max increase from about 192 in March to 200 by the middle of the summer.

The reason that your max suddenly spiked to 202 could be due to a number of reasons - was this a one-off, were you going on similar rides, dehydration, cardiac drift. Or its possible that when you saw your max drop to 195 that this was an anomoly - again was this is a one-off, for a short period of time, were you tired etc.
Although my max is 200 - it doesn't mean that everytime I ride I hit this max - even going on fast group rides I see different figures from week to week. The numbers are all in a narrow range - all in the 190+ range.

If you're tracking your max and avg HR then you might find it more useful to compare results between similar rides than between all rides. For example if you go on a fast club ride every tuesday you might find that your HR readings are more consistent with each other than comparing them to the thursday night ride that you do by yourself.

When I train alone its very difficult for me to hit my max. One thing that i have noticed is that if I'm doing intervals and pushing a large gear at a low cadence (say a 53 X 11 at 70 rpm) then my max HR for my workout will be <190 bpm. However if I'm doing some faster cadence intervals (53 X 16 at 90+ rpm) then I will have a max HR >190 bpm for that workout. For the faster cadence workouts, my aerobic system is doing more of the work and not surprisingly I track a higher avg and max HR than compared to the big gear/low cadence intervals.

S