220 minus your age compared with actual max HR

menoscemo

tunguska wrote: »

You'll be working at 95 - 100% of your max HR(220 - age)

Unfortunately max HR doesn't work like that. Everyone has a different one and 220-age is totally inaccurate.

tunguska

menoscemo wrote: »

Unfortunately max HR doesn't work like that. Everyone has a different one and 220-age is totally inaccurate.

Since when? Personally I've been using that basic method for years and it works fine for me. And its backed up by the tables in daniels' book. I would wear my HR monitor whilst doing sessions on the track and the zones we work in (T-pace, I-pace, R-pace) are bang on in accordance with the HRs worked from 220 - age. So if we were doing interval sessions I'd look at the data afterwards and my heartrate would be in that 95 - 100% zone, ditto for T-pace and R-pace sessions. Like I said, my experience is that its spot on.

menoscemo

I know guys the same age one of whom regularly gets his HR over 200 and the other has never got it higher than 160. Been discussed here many times, this is not an unusual example.
That said, anyone who has a HR monitor should have an idea of their own max HR (from previous races an V02 max sessions) and can work out their zones from that.

tunguska

menoscemo wrote: »

I know guys the same age one of whom regularly gets his HR over 200 and the other has never got it higher than 160. Been discussed here many times, this is not an unusual example.
That said, anyone who has a HR monitor should have an idea of their own max HR (from previous races an V02 max sessions) and can work out their zones from that.

You're talking about "high" and "low" beaters, there'll always be exceptions to any standard(a friend of mine regularly gets his heartrate above 210 and he's 43). I havent got the stats available to me off hand but Id be willing to bet most folks conform to the 220 - age formula.

menoscemo

tunguska wrote: »

You're talking about "high" and "low" beaters, there'll always be exceptions to any standard(a friend of mine regularly gets his heartrate above 210 and he's 43). I havent got the stats available to me off hand but Id be willing to bet most folks conform to the 220 - age formula.

Interesting and you may be right on the extremes being unusual but personally, while the 220-age is not a million miles off for me, it overestimates my MHR a good 5-6 BPM.
I just googled Max HR calculation an got this. It shows there have been many different studies which have produced different formaulas to estimate Max HR. If you stick in your details there you'll see the different formulas vary by 6-7 BPM. Personally I am in line with the lower end of the scale of the formulas.

I guess this is a debate for a different thread but as I say, the only way to accurately get your Max HR (in my opinion) is from gathering data from your own races and Training sessions.

Woddle

Mine is off by 10 beats which would equate to a 5% difference, is this topic worth it's own thread.

Vinny Mulvey

It all depends on your resting heart rate. If you take two 30 year old of the same fitness level, you would assume their max heart rates would be achieved with the sane amount of effort. But, let's assume one has a resting hr of 40 and the other has resting hr of 50. It will the one with the lower resting hr to work harder to get up to max...I would suggest you to Google the karvonen method. It works out perceived efforts based on age, max hr and resting hr. I find it tends to be correct most of the time.

Vinny Mulvey

*it will take the one with the lower resting hr....

menoscemo

Vinny Mulvey wrote: »

It all depends on your resting heart rate. If you take two 30 year old of the same fitness level, you would assume their max heart rates would be achieved with the sane amount of effort. But, let's assume one has a resting hr of 40 and the other has resting hr of 50. It will the one with the lower resting hr to work harder to get up to max...I would suggest you to Google the karvonen method. It works out perceived efforts based on age, max hr and resting hr. I find it tends to be correct most of the time.

MaxHR does not depend on Resting Heart rate. Your max HR is the most BPM your heart can pump at so it is 100% effort no matter what your resting hear rate is.
I know about the Karvonen method, but that is a formula used to calculate your training zones, based on a given resting and Max HR.
This discussion is about how to calculate max HR; nothing to do with the Karvonen method.

Vinny Mulvey

I never said max heart rate depends on resting heart rate, so don't put words in my mouth. I was talking about perceived effort. If you reread my post you will see fthat. Apologies, I didn't realise you were only talking about max heart rate and nothing else. I just thought it would be useful for people to read up on the karvonen method. Sorry bout that!

RacoonQueen

I still generally use the 220-age method too. Always used it with clients etc too. Good enough for the ACSM, good enough for me...

dna_leri

220-43=177
I get that HR without breaking sweat.
It is a pretty crude method and definitely unreliable. I thought no one used this anymore.
Run hard up a long hill twice to get a better estimate.

See www.brianmac.co.uk/maxhr.htm for references to studies that have proven the inaccuracy in 95% of cases.

menoscemo

dna_leri wrote: »

Run hard up a long hill twice to get a better estimate.
See www.brianmac.co.uk/maxhr.htm for references to studies that have proven the inaccuracy in 95% of cases.

agreed. Any yep that is the same website as i linked above. There seem to be a lot of formulas for calculating max hr and none of the particularly accurate for everyone.

seanynova

tunguska wrote: »

Since when? Personally I've been using that basic method for years and it works fine for me. And its backed up by the tables in daniels' book. I would wear my HR monitor whilst doing sessions on the track and the zones we work in (T-pace, I-pace, R-pace) are bang on in accordance with the HRs worked from 220 - age. So if we were doing interval sessions I'd look at the data afterwards and my heartrate would be in that 95 - 100% zone, ditto for T-pace and R-pace sessions. Like I said, my experience is that its spot on.

hey tunguska, would ya have any ideas on these values?

my half marathon race HR averages at 180bpm

did a few faster runs recently, 10x400m repititions, 4x1200m VO2max intervals and a 6x1m tempo session(from daniels).....

10x400m reps(full recovery) max HR varied per rep at 179-187, but for most maxHR was 184bpm
4x1200m intervals(3:30min recovery) max HR per rep 182/184/183/184
6x1m tempo (1min recovery) avHR 177-178....

i just feel its kind of weird that i can run at an average of 180bmp for almost an hour and a half and yet coming to the end of a 400m rep(or 4min interval), im shagged even though my HR is max around 184bpm (only 4bpm more than tempo HR!!)
by the way im 29....

thetonynator

I always thought 220 - age was gospel, nobody doubted it! Shows how much i know . . .i have had it over that a few times, but i blamed it on a dodgy monitor. Mine by this method is 203, i've had 208.

Wikipedia suggests:

HRmax = 205.8 − (0.685 × age) (194 for me)

HRmax = 206.3 − (0.711 × age) (194)

HRmax = 217 − (0.85 × age) (202)

HRmax = 208 − (0.7 × age) (196)

and a good few other ones.

kincsem

120 minus age spot on for me (age 60). Accurate within a few beats, and I'm not going to try to disprove it by pushing until I explode.

Its snowing.

tunney

tunguska wrote: »

Since when? Personally I've been using that basic method for years and it works fine for me. And its backed up by the tables in daniels' book. I would wear my HR monitor whilst doing sessions on the track and the zones we work in (T-pace, I-pace, R-pace) are bang on in accordance with the HRs worked from 220 - age. So if we were doing interval sessions I'd look at the data afterwards and my heartrate would be in that 95 - 100% zone, ditto for T-pace and R-pace sessions. Like I said, my experience is that its spot on.

Since always. Its not accurate at all.

N=2:
Me - 31 years old. 220-31 = 189 . I run 5kms at 194bpm and max out just under 200.
My mam - late fifties. 230-59 = 171 (230 as its meant to be sex adjusted). She, for some reason, did a max HR test recently, 202bpm.

Its an approximate that works for the median. Its has been discounted long long long ago.

runningcoach

tunney wrote: »

Since always. Its not accurate at all.

N=2:
Me - 31 years old. 220-31 = 189 . I run 5kms at 194bpm and max out just under 200.
My mam - late fifties. 230-59 = 171 (230 as its meant to be sex adjusted). She, for some reason, did a max HR test recently, 202bpm.

Its an approximate that works for the median. Its has been discounted long long long ago.

Spot on Tunney. 220 Formula works for appro 70% of the population. I would be hate to be gambling on it if I were a exception to the formula

asimonov

there's a bit of a difference for me too

220 - 39 = 181
actual tested - 196

Seres

jesus my bleddy HRmax is dirt , all out at the streets of galway and it only recorded 186bpm or somethin , i was disgusted , per discussed cal it should have been 220-30 = 190