Max heart rate questions

I decided to try to get a more realistic max heart rate than the 220-AGE formula. I rode up a 1km
hill as hard as I could, coasted down and did it again. Both times I came up with 180. The formula
would predict 189. I'm going to try this again in a couple weeks to see if I come up with similar
values. But for the moment, I'm curious...

I know the formula is an average, so it's reasonable for me to be below (or above) 189. What is the
error range associated with the forumla? (+-10%? more?)

Also, would alcohol from the previous night affect my max heart rate determination?

thx andy

 

On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 18:24:33 GMT, Andy Kriger <[email protected]> wrote:

>I know the formula is an average, so it's reasonable for me to be below (or above) 189. What is the
>error range associated with the forumla? (+-10%? more?)

I am 39 years old and regularly exceed 200 in vigorous exercise, often hitting 215. According
to Those Who Know this is within the range of normal variation, but only just. So maybe that
helps a little.

Guy
===
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notice: ADSL service in process of transfer to a new ISP. Obviously there will be a week of downtime
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Im 42 and can hit 195 pretty easily. Two years ago, I pushed up to about
205. I suspect that the age -40 formula gives a low average result, meaning that there will be more
people above this norm than below. The reason I think this is because the formula is used as a
base for recommending how hard people should work. If it were a true average, then a
significant group of people following the heart rate recommendations would be working too
hard, and facing the accompanying risks.

Duffy

"Just zis Guy, you know?" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 18:24:33 GMT, Andy Kriger <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >I know the formula is an average, so it's reasonable for me to be below
(or
> >above) 189. What is the error range associated with the forumla? (+-10%? more?)
>
> I am 39 years old and regularly exceed 200 in vigorous exercise, often hitting 215. According to
> Those Who Know this is within the range of normal variation, but only just. So maybe that helps
> a little.
>
> Guy
> ===
> ** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony. http://www.chapmancentral.com Advance
> notice: ADSL service in process of transfer to a new ISP. Obviously there will be a week of
> downtime between the engineer removing the BT service and the same engineer connecting the same
> equipment on the same line in the same exchange and billing it to the new ISP.

 

I think the formula 220 - age not accurate, seems should be 220 - age +4 You may try run for 2 miles
hard, especially at the end, try your best like going to die, you'll get accurate Max. rate

I'm thinking if I tested my heart rate in my 5k race before, it could be
>200 practice max. was 198.
Hope at 90 years old max. heart rate will still be 200 ...

Sincerely yours, Ming Kou Department of Mathematics University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
http://coolm.org http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~mingkou

On Sat, 14 Jun 2003, Andy Kriger wrote:

> I decided to try to get a more realistic max heart rate than the 220-AGE formula. I rode up a 1km
> hill as hard as I could, coasted down and did it again. Both times I came up with 180. The formula
> would predict 189. I'm going to try this again in a couple weeks to see if I come up with similar
> values. But for the moment, I'm curious...
>
> I know the formula is an average, so it's reasonable for me to be below (or above) 189. What is
> the error range associated with the forumla? (+-10%? more?)
>
> Also, would alcohol from the previous night affect my max heart rate determination?
>
> thx andy

 

>I think the formula 220 - age not accurate, seems should be 220 - age +4

And wouldn't that be the same as 224 - age?

At 63, I can regularly exercise on the 150-160 range. Have never tried to go to maximum, suspect it
might be about 170.

There is another formula (which I don't have right now) for max heart rate for those who are "fit."

http://members.aol.com/foxcondorsrvtns (Colorado rental condo)

http://members.aol.com/dnvrfox (Family Web Page)

 

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
> I decided to try to get a more realistic max heart rate than the 220-AGE formula. I rode up a 1km
> hill as hard as I could, coasted down and did it again. Both times I came up with 180. The formula
> would predict 189. I'm going to try this again in a couple weeks to see if I come up with similar
> values. But for the moment, I'm curious...

Did you feel like you were maxed out on your effort level and breathing rate? If you were truly at
your max, you should just about be ready to collapse at the end, and be seeing spots in front of
your eyes.

> I know the formula is an average, so it's reasonable for me to be below (or above) 189. What is
> the error range associated with the forumla? (+-10%? more?)

That formula is an average determined for people *who do not exercise regularly*. If you are a
regular rider, it will likely have a large but unknown, error. My max HR is about 10 bpm _higher_
than 220-age. Typically, the max HR also varies with the exercies. My max for running is about 6 bpm
higher than my max on a bike. One other formula I've seen which is for more physically fit people,
which works better for me
is:

Women: 211 - (Age/2) Men: 205 - (Age/2)

> Also, would alcohol from the previous night affect my max heart rate determination?

It might. I find that my willingness to push myself to exhaustion on any given day is a
bigger factor.

--
Dave Kerber Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

 

"Andy Kriger" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I decided to try to get a more realistic max heart rate than the 220-AGE formula. I rode up a 1km
> hill as hard as I could, coasted down and did it again. Both times I came up with 180. The formula
> would predict 189. I'm going to try this again in a couple weeks to see if I come up with similar
> values. But for the moment, I'm curious...
>
> I know the formula is an average, so it's reasonable for me to be below
(or
> above) 189. What is the error range associated with the forumla? (+-10%? more?)

When the formula was devised, it had no error range. There was an article in the New York Times a
couple of years ago where the history of the formula was traced (April 24, 2001, if you want to go
back into the archive and see the real thing).

Basically, the guy who derived the formula was a physician who was trying to determine how
strenuously patients with heart disease could exercise, and culled some data from a bunch of
different studies. These were absolutely not representative samples of the population. He was in an
airplane on his way to a meeting and showed his data to a colleague and drew a line through the
points, and says, "hey it looks like at age 40 the heart rate max is 180 and at age 60 it's 160."
And the other guy says, so it looks like max heart rate is 220-age.

I love that story.

BTW, the fitter you are, the lower your max HR.

 

>
>BTW, the fitter you are, the lower your max HR.

What do you base that statement on?

 

"Robert Chung" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>
> "Andy Kriger" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > I decided to try to get a more realistic max heart rate than the 220-AGE formula. I rode up a
> > 1km hill as hard as I could, coasted down and did
it
> > again. Both times I came up with 180. The formula would predict 189. I'm going to try this again
> > in a couple weeks to see if I come up with
similar
> > values. But for the moment, I'm curious...
> >
> > I know the formula is an average, so it's reasonable for me to be below
> (or
> > above) 189. What is the error range associated with the forumla? (+-10%? more?)
>
> When the formula was devised, it had no error range. There was an article
in
> the New York Times a couple of years ago where the history of the formula was traced (April 24,
> 2001, if you want to go back into the archive and
see
> the real thing).
>
> Basically, the guy who derived the formula was a physician who was trying
to
> determine how strenuously patients with heart disease could exercise, and culled some data from a
> bunch of different studies. These were absolutely not representative samples of the population. He
> was in an airplane on
his
> way to a meeting and showed his data to a colleague and drew a line
through
> the points, and says, "hey it looks like at age 40 the heart rate max is
180
> and at age 60 it's 160." And the other guy says, so it looks like max
heart
> rate is 220-age.
>
> I love that story.
>
> BTW, the fitter you are, the lower your max HR.
>
>

It works fairly well for me. My max HR is about 180 (as per my HR monitor), and this is also what
the formula predicts.

 

"Jbenkert111" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> >
> >
> >BTW, the fitter you are, the lower your max HR.
>
> What do you base that statement on?

The scientific literature?

The effect isn't large so it's often overlooked -- nonetheless no one suggests that MHR increases
with fitness. What effect there *is* is a decrease. Do a lit search and you'll see.

 

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...

...

> Basically, the guy who derived the formula was a physician who was trying to determine how
> strenuously patients with heart disease could exercise, and culled some data from a bunch of
> different studies. These were absolutely not representative samples of the population. He was in
> an airplane on his way to a meeting and showed his data to a colleague and drew a line through the
> points, and says, "hey it looks like at age 40 the heart rate max is 180 and at age 60 it's 160."
> And the other guy says, so it looks like max heart rate is 220-age.
>
> I love that story.

I don't know if it's true, but it basically fits with what I've read. That formula was definitely
developed to apply to people who do NOT exercise regularly.

> BTW, the fitter you are, the lower your max HR.

Generally not true; your max HR varies little with fitness level for any given person. What varies
is the resting HR. Lance's resting HR is 32 to 34, with a max over 200.

--
Dave Kerber Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

 

"David Kerber" <[email protected]_ids.net> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> > BTW, the fitter you are, the lower your max HR.
>
> Generally not true; your max HR varies little with fitness level for any given person. What varies
> is the resting HR. Lance's resting HR is 32 to 34, with a max over 200.

Your info is outdated. A more modern search of the literature suggests that max HR decreases with
increased fitness and increases with detraining. Here's a pointer to an article:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10688280&dop-
t=Abstract

Here's one sentence: "Despite several sources stating that HRmax is unaltered with training, several
studies report that HRmax is reduced following regular aerobic exercise. Furthermore, evidence
suggests that tapering/detraining can increase HRmax." I like the nice understatement of the
contrast between the phrases "sources stating" and "studies report."

Here's the bottom line summary: "There is a high correlation between changes in both maximal oxygen
uptake (VO2 Max) and HRmax that occurs with training, tapering, and detraining (r=-0.76: p < 0.0001;
n=314), which indicates that as VO2max improves with training, HRmax tends to decrease, and when
detraining ensues, HRmax tends to increase...HRmax can be altered by 3 to 7% with aerobic
training/detraining."

 

In article <[email protected]>, Andy Kriger
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I know the formula is an average, so it's reasonable for me to be below (or above) 189. What is
> the error range associated with the forumla? (+-10%? more?)

I've read that the difference from the "220-age" formula can be as great as 10-12 bpm or more. I
can't recall whether that was a true 1 SD measurement, but other studies have derived std errors
ranging from about 9 to 15 bpm in healthy subjects, and even larger for subjects with coronary heart
disease. I refer you to:

R.A. Robergs and R. Landwehr, "The surprising history of the 'HRmax=220-age' equation," Journal
of Exercise Physiology Online, vol 5 no 2 (May 2002).
<http://www.css.edu/users/tboone2/asep/EditorialROBERGS.pdf>

And to put it another way, using the formula to predict _age_ as a function of _heart rate_ can be
off by 9 to 15 years, with a sizeable chance that the error will be even greater than that.

Van

--
Van Bagnol / v a n at wco dot com / c r l at bagnol dot com ...enjoys - Theatre / Windsurfing /
Skydiving / Mountain Biking ...feels - "Parang lumalakad ako sa loob ng paniginip" ...thinks - "An
Error is Not a Mistake ... Unless You Refuse to Correct It"

 

"Van Bagnol" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I refer you to:
>
> R.A. Robergs and R. Landwehr, "The surprising history of the 'HRmax=220-age' equation,"
> Journal of Exercise Physiology Online, vol 5 no 2 (May 2002).
> <http://www.css.edu/users/tboone2/asep/EditorialROBERGS.pdf>

Thanks. A slightly more direct link to the article is via:
http://www.css.edu/users/tboone2/asep/Robergs2.pdf

That article says that they traced the origin of 220-age to an article by Fox, Naughton, and
Haskell. The April 2001 NYTimes article I cited elsewhere in this thread was based on an interview
with Haskell, relating his conversation with Fox.

 

>I've read that the difference from the "220-age" formula can be as great as 10-12 bpm or more.

It is far more then that. I am off by 20 points. I have a friend who is off by 30 points. I was on a
training ride with some other riders and one of the ladies told me that she was at "90%" of her max
heart rate the entire time.

The thing is that the 220-age is so unreliable as to make it not very helpful in using a heart rate
monitor for training.

 

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
> >I've read that the difference from the "220-age" formula can be as great as 10-12 bpm or more.
>
> It is far more then that. I am off by 20 points. I have a friend who is off by 30 points. I was on
> a training ride with some other riders and one of the ladies told me that she was at "90%" of her
> max heart rate the entire time.
>
> The thing is that the 220-age is so unreliable as to make it not very helpful in using a heart
> rate monitor for training.

It was never intended to be; it was designed as a "starting point" for people who did not previously
exercies. For people who exercise regularly, the max HR doesn't decrease much with age, so that
number doesn't track well.

Once you are in halfway decent shape, the most accurate way to find your max HR is to test yourself.
Ride at a good pace for half an hour or so to warm up, then find a big hill and bust your ass
climbing it until you see spots in front of your eyes. The number you see (if you can see through
the spots <grin>) is your max HR. Try it two or three times on different days when your muscles are
well-rested to verify it. Unless I'm well-rested, I find that muscle fatigue can often keep me from
feeling like I've maxed out my cardio-vascular system.

If you do other forms of exercise such as running or swimming, you will find that your max HR in
each sport is different. My max HR running is around 6-7 bpm higher than biking.

--
David Kerber An optimist says "Good morning, Lord." While a pessimist says "Good Lord,
it's morning".

Remove the ns_ from the address before e-mailing.

 

"archer" <[email protected]_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:[email protected]...

> For people who exercise regularly, the max HR doesn't decrease much with age, so that number
> doesn't track well.
> --
> David Kerber

Ugh. You're not going to like this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=P-
ubMed&list_uids=11581561&dopt=Abstract

It's a pointer to: "A longitudinal assessment of change in VO2max and maximal heart rate in master
athletes."

The sentence of interest is: "HRmax change did not differ by VO2max change or training
volume change."

 

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>
> "archer" <[email protected]_hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
> > For people who exercise regularly, the max HR doesn't decrease much with age, so that number
> > doesn't track well.
> > --
> > David Kerber
>
> Ugh. You're not going to like this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db-
> =PubMed&list_uids=11581561&dopt=Abstract
>
> It's a pointer to: "A longitudinal assessment of change in VO2max and maximal heart rate in master
> athletes."
>
> The sentence of interest is: "HRmax change did not differ by VO2max change or training volume
> change."

However, they didn't give numbers for the change in HRmax; only VO2max. Have you seen the full study
which might give the numbers for HRmax change?

--
David Kerber An optimist says "Good morning, Lord." While a pessimist says "Good Lord,
it's morning".

Remove the ns_ from the address before e-mailing.

 

"archer" <[email protected]_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>> >
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11581561&dop-
t=Abstract
> >
> > It's a pointer to: "A longitudinal assessment of change in VO2max and maximal heart rate in
> > master athletes."
> >
> > The sentence of interest is: "HRmax change did not differ by VO2max change or training volume
> > change."
>
> However, they didn't give numbers for the change in HRmax; only VO2max. Have you seen the full
> study which might give the numbers for HRmax change?

Nope, but you're welcome to do that and report back here if you think it matters. This was a
longitudinal study so foks usually pay more attention to the changes over time than to what the
actual numbers were.

BTW, I'm not that interested in HRmax. I was looking more for stuff on VO2max and a side-effect of
this is that I found a bunch of things on HRmax. I don't think that HRmax or changes in HRmax are
particularly good indicators of fitness (as long as HRmax doesn't go to zero), so I don't really pay
too much attention to it. I find it vaguely amusing that it has become so routinized in the fitness
and training world.

 

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...

...

> > > The sentence of interest is: "HRmax change did not differ by VO2max change or training volume
> > > change."
> >
> > However, they didn't give numbers for the change in HRmax; only VO2max. Have you seen the full
> > study which might give the numbers for HRmax change?
>
> Nope, but you're welcome to do that and report back here if you think it matters.

I don't, particularly; I was just curious.

...

> BTW, I'm not that interested in HRmax. I was looking more for stuff on VO2max and a side-effect of
> this is that I found a bunch of things on HRmax. I don't think that HRmax or changes in HRmax are
> particularly good indicators of fitness (as long as HRmax doesn't go to zero), so I don't really
> pay too much attention to it. I find it vaguely amusing that it has become so routinized in the
> fitness and training world.

I think it's because HR is much easier to measure than VO2, and therefore they use HR as a
stand-in for VO2.

--
David Kerber An optimist says "Good morning, Lord." While a pessimist says "Good Lord,
it's morning".

Remove the ns_ from the address before e-mailing.