Originally Posted by
drlogik
What's your point?
The OP asked how other folks figure out their max heart rate. People are replying with how they do that. What's your problem? Is it that you feel compelled to prove their opinion is wrong?
Not everyone is the physiological marvel that you are at 43 years old and hitting 193 beats per minute. Some of us are mere mortals that used to compete at high levels in multiple sports and have aged out.
Geez, dude, relax! Who peed in your Cheerios?
The point is that the old formula of 220 - age is pretty much useless, and that what most people call 'HRmax' really isn't HRmax, so if you base your zones on something well below HRmax, your zones will be off. That may or may not matter to you, but I think it's worth knowing.
As far as I can tell, there isn't an accurate way of
predicting or
calculating your HRmax, which means the only thing you can do is
determine it - and there are plenty of suggestions online, generally something like doing a climb, hard enough and long enough to go anearobic, then sprinting as hard as you can till you can't. There are other methods for determining HR zones that don't involve figuring out HRmax, which might be safer for older codgers like me and others.
And as far as I can tell, HRmax is NOT a function of condition, so having a HRmax of 193 at that age is not being any kind of physiological marvel. It's just a data point.