best heart rate?
 

i was wondering if a lower heart rate was better or worse than a higher .
i saw a "friends " data the other day and their heart rate was 160 av almost 190 max , mine is not like that but i can put out better numbers without even trying ...

maybe because they are on rollers and im on a stationary , or maybe they ride fixed and im on standard gears .
point is it got me wondering what heart rate i should be doing , or just dont worry about it and keep training hard no matter what heart rate results i get ..???!!!!

hmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!:foo:

From what?

The maximum heart rate a person can hit is primarily a factor of genetics and age. The heart rate a person will hit for a given work load will be a factor of those two, his genetics (yes again, but a different aspect) and conditioning, I never had a big engine but I could hit 200+ at the tops of hard climbs in my 20s. In my early '50s, I held 164 for a long, hard climb. Much higher and I would have blown. I probably had a ceiling of 180 at that time. I hit 164 in the sprint at the end of a trainer workout the other day, For a nice long 5 seconds. At 65 years old.

I never did any more research in my younger days. My HR monitor was a hand over my heart and a wrist watch. Didn't work at low or high levels of effort or uphill.

Ben

...after being stung by a rabid scorpion.

So, please explain how your numbers are "better"

There are so many factors into heart rate I wouldn't overthink it

best HR is one that's zero. Never go negative.

Heart rates can't be compared between individuals, even if they are of the same age. It's YOUR maximum that's relevant, your threshold, your numbers.

Your heart rate is your heart rate. Don't compare with others.

I like that... good one.

So.... If I'm taking someone else's pulse, that's not really the same as taking mine??? I did not know that....... 😜

If you take it using your thumb, you could think you're taking someone else's pulse but be taking your own.

The best heart rate is the one that most efficiently delivers oxygenated blood to your cells. This is tied to your individual needs and is based on your fitness and activity. By all means become familiar with your heart rate, but it's actual performance you should be comparing to others.

the best is beating

:foo:

Best Heart Rate?
 

I ask my doctor at annual checkup time and my cardiologist when I see her every other year.

Good explanation. Anyone exploring the limits should seriously consider age and your current conditioning. Pushing the limits can be risky.

Unless you're contemplating swapping hearts. We could add a surgical dimension to Valentine's Day.

Your max has to do with age, genetics, & conditioning I'd argue that the response to activity is "better" than any particular number.

When I started cycling it would take a while for my heart to ramp up, then it would stay there for the duration and remain so afterwards for quite some time. Now, a few years in at an average of over an hour of exercise per day, my heart response is immediate it requires effort to maintain 150 & drops to nearly normal in under 30 seconds. At the age of almost 41, my actual max (that I achieved last year) was 196, but I regularly push & hold 185 on hills at any given ride.

220 minus your age says I should be dead. High=good/better is bollocks. It means you put in effort, it doesn't mean you are healthy or conditioned. How quickly you return to nominal=better.

If you can sustain a high percentage of your anaerobic threshold (AT), then that's a "good" HR. It actually does show that you're in good shape.

Where that AT is, is the tricky part. Although we sometimes see it as a percentage of the maximum HR, that's basically a fiction utilized by writers (internet coaches?) to simplify things. The reality is that the maximum HR doesn't really say much about it. In a general range, sure but specifically no. Our AT can be increased with enough specific training (increasing VO2max, the maximum amount of oxygen we can take in and utilize), but the goal for most of us, usually, is training how well we can sustain something closer to the AT.

My maximum has slowed from around 200 in my thirties, to about 185 at age 65. I now consider 165-168 a hard effort, but one that I can sustain for quite a while. Ten years ago 178 was a hard but sustainable level. Anything under 145 is taking it easy, even at age 65.

More important than heart rate is cardiac output which is a function of HR and stroke volume. As athletes age their hearts typically grow, stroke volume increases and HR goes down for a given cardiac output. My HR at the same power has dropped by 5-10 beats in the last 8 yrs.

Monitoring HR can be useful for an individual but is not a useful metric to compare with others. No one enters races based on HR.

I don't measure my HR. It seems to beat faster when I do some stuff than it does other stuff.

Not sure what the point is of knowing these statistics--are you contemplating getting a new heart or stopping the aging process?