downtube42

I think the formula is fabulous. I can crush it, which tells me I'm effectively 12 years younger than my calendar age. My plan is to suffer a little harder at each birthday, and live forever.

Let it lie (no pun intended).

70sSanO

Not defending the formula, but it probably works much better in a doctor’s office and hooked up to diagnostic equipment. It was what I needed to hit on my stress test, and then they pushed me past it. It is for diagnostic purposes, especially if any anomalies show up.

There is no formula that works for anyone riding unless a doctor determined that is the threshold for the individual. It is pretty funny to see people throw out numbers without having a clue what’s really going on in their heart.

I understand bragging rights for speed and mileage. Never thought heart rate would reach that level.

John

genejockey 

Data points demonstrating the absence of any predictive value for "220 - age" =/= "bragging rights", because as I said, your HRmax says nothing at all about your fitness.

GhostRider62

I guess besides concluding 220-age has no basis, high HR seems to have nothing to do with fitness or no bragging rights to high HR.

"Froome has a rather low heart rate. In his test at GSK, his heart rate at the top effort level tested - 425 watts - was only 138bpm. Froome's maximum heart rate has been reported to be 174....."

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/fiv...ological-data/

Phil_gretz

Tom Simpson?

Paul Barnard

Good point. One in how many?

MoAlpha

I don't think a HRM would have saved Tom Simpson.

Iride01 

HR monitors that we use as cyclists are not to determine if we are about to die. They are to assist with letting us know how much effort we are putting out. Hard efforts that we can't sustain will be at our higher HR's. Moderate to easy efforts that we can maintain for a long period or even all day will be lower HR's.

I just seems for some reason, noobs with a HR meter suddenly think there is something wrong medically when their HR is maxed. Then later some other faulty thinking that their heart isn't functioning well any more because they don't get the same HR for the same effort. When in fact their heart is stronger and pumping more blood with less HR needed.

terrymorse 

Yes, basing training zones on HRmax seems rather outdated.

I don't even know what my HRmax is these days, and I'm not interested in finding out.

I set my HR zones off of lactate threshold heart rate, or LT. The test to find LT is a lot easier and less painful than doing a max effort. My Garmin Edge 830 calculates it automatically.

Heart rate zones as a percentage of LT, per Andy Coggan:


Coggan, Training and racing using a power meter: an introduction, rev. 25 March 2003

genejockey 

That's kind of what I've been doing, since the last time I hit HRmax was about 20 years ago and I don't have any idea what it is now.

livedarklions

I just wind mine up and let it do what it's going to do:

GhostRider62

I find Garmin to be very inaccurate and nearly worthless. Vo2 max wrong, threshold wrong, and zones wrong. I have no idea whether it uses HR, Power, and/or speed to SWAG it.

Heart Rate variability (HRV) is a nice metric to track. As I get older, I find the sore legs take longer to resolve but interestingly, the worst day endocrine-wise is day 2 after a hard workout and it shows on my HRV. Sometimes even into the 3rd day and this means take it easy.

When you see your HR rising at a steady power, this tells you something. If it is cold, you are about to be in trouble. If it is hot, you are about to be in trouble. Decoupling is interesting to know. You can't get that data w/o a HRM.

If HR at LT1 is lower and power higher, you know your endurance has improved. If power is higher and HR is lower at LT2, your ability to use lactate is improved.

Its kind of like the oil gage or pressure gage on the car, not too sexy but it has a value.

Mark Allen won what six Ironman World Championships......interesting video in the attached link where he discusses the use of (low) HR in training

https://philmaffetone.com/mark-allen...w-to-get-fast/

terrymorse 

I believe that Garmin uses the algorithm developed by firstbeatanalytics.com:

Iride01 

Knowing what your VO2 max currently is just means you know how much you suck or don't suck at doing high efforts. It's really a useless number just like max HR.

mschwett 

interesting discussion. i’m an outlier here, relatively fit for my age (46) but with a heart rhythm disorder that more or less requires i keep my HR below 130. resting is 35-45, and on a typical ride i average 110 with a range from 95-125.

obviously the formula is not meant to apply to edge cases like myself, but i wonder if there’s a direct relationship in any given individual between heart rate and power output. it would follow that energy/oxygen supply to the leg muscles increase with heart rate, but i assume there are other factors. at 115BPM i put down around 250w for pretty much as long as my butt/hands/lower back can tolerate. hard to imagine that would be 50% more at the 220-age level…

PeteHski

Your max HR is what it is. It has nothing to do with being in a Doctor’s office or riding your bike. It’s easy enough to measure with a simple chest strap HRM by doing some maximal sprint interval training or a ramp test to failure when feeling reasonably fresh. You do need to go flat out, no holding back. You probably won’t die.

The ancient 220-age formula doesn’t work for most people and so is pretty useless unless you are in the minority who it just happens to fit. It doesn’t fit me by a long way and I’m certainly no outlier here.

More interestingly max HR is untrainable. It doesn’t go any higher as you get fitter. It’s basically hard wired by your genes. It does however go down gradually as you age and maintaining fitness might help to slow down that trend (I think, not 100% sure on that last point). The rule of thumb suggesting max HR drops by 1 bpm per year has not been accurate for me.

Only resting HR and LTHR (Lactate threshold HR) are trainable, so much more useful to base HR zones from - as most modern systems do.

It’s also pointless to compare your HR numbers against other individuals as they are so widely variable. It’s only ever worth analysing your own specific numbers relative to your own past performance.

PeteHski

There is a direct relationship between HR and Power, but it gets thrown off by all manner of variables e.g. heat, fatigue etc. But I can clearly see that relationship in my own power and HR data. For example I do a fair bit of indoor interval training at specific power outputs under much the same ambient conditions and my average HR for those identical power sessions is very consistent at a given fitness level.

GhostRider62

I think it actually also uses speed in the algo. That is the only way I can understand how mine is so wrong. I ride a very efficient recumbent and my speeds are much higher than an upright rider.

Grouperdawg

My max heart rate is much higher then the age adjusted rate, everyone’s heart rate is different and the formula is a very crude estimate. Some hearts pump fast and easy and some pump slow and hard. I set my max as a beat or two higher then I’ve seen it on a maximum effort ride.

You can’t change what your maximum heart rate is. By training you can get to it, stay in it or near it longer, But your max rate doesn’t change from training. It is what it is. As you age it will also get lower.

ChamoisDavisJr

There's no way it would use speed. Can you imagine how the metrics would be measured? You have a girl who climbs 3,000 feet in every ride (slower average speed, but probably working harder thus increasing her VO2 Max) vs. Guy riding in the morning on the MUP with no elevation gain or wind to work against cruising along at twice the speed of the climber and he'd have a higher VO2? Plus, imagine the difference in speed in using a cheap computer, or a garmin/wahoo karoo, or using an iPhone not to mention if you had a speed sensor in there. I'd think speed would be way to noisy of a variable to establish a VO2 number.

What do you use to measure your speed? What about a Power Meter? I imagine it'd be difficult to have a Power Meter on your recumbent and a Power Meter on your standard pedal bike so you could measure your power output plus your speed on the same course to see how much faster your recumbent is compared to your regular bike. You ever done a test like that?

GhostRider62

Powertap G3. It measures power and has a built in speed sensor in the hub

I do my 10 mile TT on an upright in just under 24 minutes and around 19:30 minutes on my recumbent. This is not a power meter problem. The speeds of both line up with my measured Crr, CdA, and CP.

"Combining sensor data for speed (GPS or pod) and HR allows us to estimate VO2max accurately. The Firstbeat algorithm analyzes the relationship between HR and exercise speed at multiple points during a training session."

https://www.firstbeat.com/en/science...fitness-level/

https://assets.firstbeat.com/firstbe..._30.6.2017.pdf

HR and Speed. In the Patent

https://patentimages.storage.googlea...10040193A1.pdf

70sSanO

That isn’t entirely true. My brother had a mild heart attack and was told to keep his HR under a certain amount.

For some who are really fit, I agree you go as hard as you can. But then again, I would think someone wouldn’t need a monitor to tell them how hard they are pushing.

The exception would those who are getting paid to ride, or will be. For everyone else it is nice to have the numbers; and will probably help them train for their own personal goals.

John

Grouperdawg

But his max rate isn’t any different, I would agree with the quoted poster….your max heart rate is what it is and doesn’t change from fitness level, it’s your dna. Now, if you are not in good shape , you might not even be able to get up to your max heart rate bc you are breathing so heavy etc. training or being fit doesn’t change what it is though

PeteHski

That's not the same thing as his natural maximum HR though, which is what I was talking about. His doc has simply put an artificial limit on his HR. He could push over that limit if he really wanted to, so it is not his max HR.

70sSanO

I have a iWatch that gives my HR, which I’ll sometimes look at on some climbs. I generally wear the watch to see elevation gain.

I haven’t really studied Max HR, I can tell without looking if I’ve really pushed myself. But if Max HR never changes, why does anyone use it, except athletes who are competing?

John