Reynolds 

My MHR is very high for my age - 194 @ 65yrs old. My Dr. says it's an individual variation, not to worry about. Did the 1min recovery test, and while there was a 54bpm difference from MHR, my HR dropped only 34bpm from 155. What do you think about it?

OldTryGuy

Have no idea what my MHR is but during a recent pre-op EKG for my prostate cancer surgery my HR right after being hooked up was 32bpm and I'm 65 also.

Viking55803

Here is a good summary of heart recovery rates. The gold standard is the two minute HRR. It looks like a 34 bpm drop in one minute is quite good:

Mark's Notes: Recovery and your heart rate - Raleigh CrossFit

As someone coming back from quadruple bypass a little over 3 years ago, this is something I check often. I have a damaged heart from a heart attack at age 43 (I'm 67 now) but at this point my heart is working up to specifications for my age. My max hr, though, is quite low - about 145 and my resting hr is consistently under 60 bpm.

Reynolds 

Thanks! That article isn't clear to me - it takes a very long time, maybe hours, for my HR to get back to resting pace (56bpm). However, it goes down fast in the first 2 mins. From 194 to 140 in 1 min and to 126 in 2 mins.

sprince

Long term drop would also depend on how much heat you generate during the exercise, and thus depends on the air temperature/humidity during and after. The heart has to work a bit harder until there is no excess heat remaining to dissipate.

Seattle Forrest

My Garmin tracks this automatically; 2 minutes after I stop an exercise, it tells me my recovery HR, presumably from the last HR recording before I stopped.

I really don't like the idea in here that if your recovery rate is between X and Y it means this, but if it's between I and J it means something different. My recovery HR can be as high as 100 bpm when I run, it's always much less cycling because my heart doesn't work as hard on the bike. The numbers are specific to the conditions, so you can't just do this test once and draw conclusions.

deapee

I think that you should only use your own recovery in the same setting to determine this number.

For example, a few of my rides end with a pretty bit hill...so when I get to the top of the hill, within 1 min, I'm back at my car. Other rides I may end my ride with a 10 minute cruise back to the car.

My vivoactive hr does track this, and I've seen 165 to 108, and I've seen 135 to 108 after my rides if I happen to glance down. I normally don't even look at it. I think that my heart just pretty much goes back to 108 as I'm loading stuff into my car/chilling on the bumper collecting my thoughts after a ride. I think hydration and other factors can play a big role in this too. If it's super hot, I wouldn't expect good numbers when arriving back at the car.

I think for a proper test, you should do the burpee heart rate recovery test -- and ensure that you're properly hydrated (and properly warmed up) before you start. I think THAT will give a more accurate number that you can gauge your recovery heart rate off of...not a 30 minute or 3 hour bike ride, because there are so many factors outside of your control with that, which will greatly change your results.

Edited to add -- I don't know my max heart rate -- I thought it was 186 for a pretty long time, but then when racing once I hit 192...but I've never hit 192 again...so who knows.
Also, for context, my resting is normally around 56.

Jseis 

I'm 61, my HR drops 40-50 in a minute (depending on how high a HR I've been pedaling at) and example is from 155 to 105. In 2 minutes it'll drop to 100. What I've really noticed in hill climbing is the swift recovery on grade changes say from 6% to 3%. In 30 minutes it'll drop into the 80's. In the morning upon awaking its at 58. At age 21 my resting (morning) rate was 51. I'm curious if that'll ever happen again.

DrIsotope

Have never had a low resting HR-- usually hovers around 70bpm. The recovery thing got me curious, so I tried it yesterday. Pounded up a hill, then stopped and waited two minutes.

Peak HR on climb: 173
HR after 1 minute: 124
HR after 2 minutes: 117

Not an optimal test situation, as it was already hot (+80š at around 7am) and the humidity was high (for us, at least) but the 50bpm drop for the first minute seems fairly typical.

deapee

So I performed some testing out of curiosity.

Last night after a pretty quick group ride, my Garmin listed my recovery heart rate at 32 bpm. I was winded, my legs were sore, I was very overheated. And for the last 2-3 minutes of the ride I basically coasted back to the lot. I would call that a very inaccurate indicator of what one's recovery heart rate was. Because (as I mentioned above), we encounter different variables on our rides that we cannot control (a hill back to the car, a 3 minute coast back to the car), etc etc. On that 3 minute coast, my heart rate might start to recover from 160 to 130, etc...or on a climb, I may be well above average at 170 or something when it starts determining my recovery heart rate.

--

Anyway...I just did burpees for 2 minutes straight. I'm well-hydrated, and the air in here is 71 degrees F and 45% humidity.

- My heart rate hit 154.
- Exactly 2 minutes later, my heart rate was at 85.
- That gives me a 2 min recovery of 69 bpm.

I would call *that* an accurate 2 minute recovery heart rate test.

And in a set amount of time, I can pretty much perform the same test again with exactly the same variables.

2 min seems like the right place to measure. 1 min (too much variability) 5 min, doesn't tell you much because I'm still at 82 as I type this. So if 2 mins is the standard, that's what I would test...and I would test it in a controlled environment, not after an hour and a half ride where you can't control how hard you're working or how much recovery your heart just did in the last 2-5 minutes of the ride.

corrado33

It's funny. When I run, regardless of how hard I try in the last few minutes, my HR after 2 minutes of being stopped is almost always 95-105 BPM. So if I was running hard and my HR was at 170, then I have a 65-75 BPM drop. If I was running easy and my HR was at 140, then I'll have a 35-45 BPM drop.

Looking at my watch, my HR drops to ~100-105 BPM very quickly after stopping, within 30 seconds or so assuming I was doing a normal run and not a workout.

Garmin says it's an indication of how well hydrated and fed you are and how well your body can recover. So if the 2 minute recovery HR is higher than normal, it's time to back off a bit.

Apologies for the running and not biking content. My biking 2 minute recovery HR is useless because I almost always take the last .25 miles easy before my stopping point, so my HR is already down around 120 when I finally stop. See below.

Biking HR.


Running HR.


Running HR is much more consistent.

work4bike

Curious: What do you have to do to get your HR that high? If you basically have to kill yourself, than I'd say that's a good thing (your high H/R). However, if you don't have to do much, than I'd be concerned.

However, I read a really good article on the how the 'theory' of max H/R is basically total bunk. And in that article it does mention that many doctors do consider the 1-minute recovery test as a very important indicator of cardio health

'Maximum' Heart Rate Theory Is Challenged - NYTimes.com

Below is the applicable portion of the above link; however, I recommend reading the entire article, it's very interesting and informative.