average HR

Amprodude

What is a good Avg HR for an amateur rider?

Invincible

All depends on your age.

Amprodude

Invincible wrote: »

All depends on your age.

How about for a 28 year old??

denbatt

Amprodude wrote: »

How about for a 28 year old??

I find their are so many variables using a hrm. I have stopped using it this weather just seems to be all over the place when I am wrapped up in my winter gear.

Invincible

Amprodude wrote: »

How about for a 28 year old??

210- half your age(14), then subtract 5% of your bodyweight in pounds, add 0 if your female and 4 if your male. Then the below zones will give you an idea of what you want to achieve.


Zone 1 (60-65% of maximum heart rate): For long, easy rides, to improve the combustion and storage of fats.

Zone 2 (65-75% of MHR): The basic base training zone. Longish rides of medium stress.

Zone 3 (75-82% of MHR): For development of aerobic capacity and endurance with moderate volume at very controlled intensity.

Zone 4 (82-89% of MHR): For simulating pace when tapering for a race.

Zone 5 (89-94% of MHR): For raising anaerobic threshold. Good sessions for 10- and 25-mile time-trials.

Zone 6 (94-100% of MHR): For high-intensity interval training to increase maximum power and speed

Plastik

What?

Beasty

Invincible wrote: »

210- half your age(14), then subtract 5% of your bodyweight in pounds, add 0 if your female and 4 if your male. Then the below zones will give you an idea of what you want to achieve.

The various formulae that attempt to estimate training zones are based on the average person, and can be way out. If I followed the one you mentioned I would be either:
1. 20 years younger; or
2. weightless; or
3. training at least one zone out

OP, average HR is pretty meaningless when it comes to evaluating how "fit" you are. The important measures are Resting HR and Maximum HR. (More here)

A low Resting HR is generally considered a sign of good fitness amongst healthy athletes, but also can be an indication of underlying health issues, so should be checked out by your doctor.

The best way to work out you Maximum HR is by measuring it directly using a HR monitor in a high intensity training session. Basically see how high you can get it (that may still underestimate it slightly though), or check your own records for the max you have recorded (making sure it's not simply a blip in the record)

Resting HR can be checked simply, but you should wait until a couple of days after any training and make sure you are well rested and not ill or recovering from illness. I would not check it after eating as digesting food tends to up the HR a bit

If you are just starting out you should really get yourself checked out by your doctor first before undertaking any high intensity training

Alek

I consider myself a fit 33 year old (according to my own standards though ) and my resting HR is 52, max HR is 180.

Average HR on a short spin is about 150, on a long one (60-200km) - 140. I'm usually aiming for 27-29kmh average speed.

[edit]

According to Beasty's chart, I'm cycling between zone 3 and 4 (with short bursts of zone 5 uphill, followed by periods of heavy breathing )

ZiabR

Invincible wrote: »

210- half your age(14), then subtract 5% of your bodyweight in pounds, add 0 if your female and 4 if your male. Then the below zones will give you an idea of what you want to achieve.


Zone 1 (60-65% of maximum heart rate): For long, easy rides, to improve the combustion and storage of fats.

Zone 2 (65-75% of MHR): The basic base training zone. Longish rides of medium stress.

Zone 3 (75-82% of MHR): For development of aerobic capacity and endurance with moderate volume at very controlled intensity.

Zone 4 (82-89% of MHR): For simulating pace when tapering for a race.

Zone 5 (89-94% of MHR): For raising anaerobic threshold. Good sessions for 10- and 25-mile time-trials.

Zone 6 (94-100% of MHR): For high-intensity interval training to increase maximum power and speed

Nice chart, thanks! Seems I am in Zone 3 more than not.

seamus

logik wrote: »

Nice chart, thanks! Seems I am in Zone 3 more than not.

It depends on what your true max HR is though. The various formulas aren't much use; if your actual max HR is 10bpm off the calculated average, then you will end up training in the wrong zones.

I'm 32, all of the calculations give me a max HR between 180 and 190. My max HR is 202. If were take the calculated numbers and use them for training, I would be way off.

Max HR isn't affected at all by fitness, btw, it's resting HR that is. If your resting HR is under 60, you can consider yourself reasonably fit. As you approach 50bpm, you can probably say you're exceptionally fit (i.e. fitter than most), below 50bpm you're probably superfit.

Of course, some people will have a naturally higher or lower resting HR, so that's a very rough guideline. If you have a low resting HR but you don't do much training, or you have a high resting HR despite doing lots of training*, then as Beasty says that can be an indicator of an underlying health problem so would be worth having checked out.

*Lots of training being 3-5 times a week for at least 18 months

quozl

I've seen a few papers concluding that recovery heart-rate is a good measure of fitness/general cardio-vascular health.

IE the number of BPM that your heart-rate drops in one minute after moving from heavy exercise to gentle recovery.

Another +1 for the formula's are nonsense by the way. It's easy enough to get your real figures as long as you are certain - Doctor inspected if un-sure - that you are safe to do some serious exercise. A couple of hill repeats will get your heart rate with a beat or two of your maximum

The formulas would have me out by about 10bpm which is a world of difference.

Alek

Any link to some guidelines, quozl?

Beasty

seamus wrote: »

below 50bpm you're probably superfit.

That'll do me seamus - 44bpm when I last checked (and probably taken too soon after previous training)

Another good measure though is how quickly your HR can drop after an intense workout. They reckon that a good sign is if you can get it to drop by around 30bpm over 2 minutes after getting it up to say 90%+ of maximum

quozl

Alek wrote: »

Any link to some guidelines, quozl?

Here's a couple of widely cited papers. You'll only be able to see the abstract of the first without journal access but the conclusions are kindly given.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11602493
and
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199910283411804

They considered <= 18 bpm recovery rate to be abnormal in Watanabe et al. and highly predictive of a risk of cardiovascular failure. If I was an actively training cyclist and I had a recovery rate of 18 I'd be getting checked-out quick-smart as those were figures for the general population not for well-trained individuals who should - I speculate - have better values than that.

Then again, I'm 35 with 2 young kids. I think a periodic check-up is a good idea anyway

nordicb

In my view, resting HR is good to take in the morning, right when you wake up.
Max HR requires a bit of an experiment and is highly individual. As mentioned earlier, don't rely too much on formulas, however zone effects (once you have worked out your min/max HR) are useful to know. Some sources call Zone 3 "junk miles" in cycling terms as you are not doing recovery, nor improving (not my words).

Personally if I do group rides/runs, or want to improve my time, I leave HR strap at home - somehow, after a while, HRM becomes a limiting factor for some reason, but that's just personal experience. Also, there are other ways to approximate which zone you're in without having the HRM. I usually use it for endurance activities, where I know I need to dispense energy wisely to not to feel miserable at the end. But then again, it down to experience and you may not need HRM once you learn to know your body.

Alek

Here's a couple of widely cited papers.

heart rate recovery is a powerful and independent predictor of death.

:eek::eek::eek:

My 1min recovery HR drop seems to be 30-40 bpm. I hope thats good enough

quozl

Alek wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek:

My 1min recovery HR drop seems to be 30-40 bpm. I hope thats good enough

I don't have access to the full article anymore but IIRC that was considered excellent.

I think that 25+ was considered good but again, I don't have access to the full article since I finished my MSc. Online journal access is a world of nerdy fun but unless you get it free it's way, way too expensive! You can probably find more information via google if you're interested but 30+ is definitely good.

Alek

Phew! After 32 slouch potato years and actually less than 1 year into any sports I am quite cautious about things... ;-)

lennymc

surely actually having a heartbeat is a good predictor of death, in that, if you have a heart beat, you will one day die?

quozl

lennymc wrote: »

surely actually having a heartbeat is a good predictor of death, in that, if you have a heart beat, you will one day die?

Don't worry, they usual control for that by ensuring that all participants are alive at the start of the study.

Darkglasses

Well my resting avg is about 90 bpm, max around 210 bpm. I don't think it means anything taken on it's own. 23 y.o.

WillyFXP

Darkglasses wrote: »

Well my resting avg is about 90 bpm, max around 210 bpm. I don't think it means anything taken on it's own. 23 y.o.

Yup, totally individual, my average resting is 70bpm, max 195 (I know this cus I'm at the "spewing" stage) 44years old, smoked for 30 of those....

Alek

Well my resting avg is about 90 bpm

Measured when you wake up?

macnab

My average heart beat is about 165 BPM.
I max out at 204 BPM with a resting rate of 46 BPM.
My recovery from 180 BPM is 50, and from 167 BPM its 44.
At 45 years old I am very pleased with those figures, however they do not translate into race winning performance.
I average about 30KM/h for 50KM spins, 33KM/H is my fastest solo spin (over 45KM) and I have averaged 26.5KM/H on the ROK cycle (170KM ish) I can average 38KM/H over sub 10KM distances with the wind in my favour

BadCharlie

Need to work out your max, mine would be about 196 age 36.