Anaerobic threshold and HR max

Pines

I've been running about 6 months, and today I used a heart rate monitor for the first time. The (220 - age) formula for my max heart rate gives me 186, but I know this formula is pretty ropy.

What I found was that in a 5k run, I spent most of my time in the range 182-187. I was breathing hard throughout, and was pretty drained by the end of it. But I'm assuming you just can't spend 20 minutes at your max heart rate and that I was somewhere around my anaerobic threshold (say 85%). Does this sound about right?

I know that this run probably overdid it, but I would like to get a good idea of what my HR max is likely to be so that I can do proper recovery runs, tempo runs, etc.

martinl

Pines,
Read once and tried the following to find my maximum heart rate.

1. Warm up 5-10min easy jog
2.Run 6-8times either 1min anywhere or around 400m on the track, what
ever us more applicable. Pace - pushing it with 1-2min break in between.

3. The last run is flat out – finish the last run and read your heart rate value,
which should be you max. heart rate.

4.5min cool down

Then take your 85% or whatever percentage you aim for.

Regards your hear rate range 182-187 I would say you definitely overdid it a bit there.

copacetic

pines, if you could stay in that range for 20 mins then it obviously is nowhere near your max heart rate 90% is about what fit runners can do, loads of people don't match the formula, sounds like you need to do a test like martinl suggests, except that all of the runs are supposed to be 'max effort' and you need a monitor than records max HR rather than looking at your watch
at the end, you will miss the max if you do it that way.

a more accurate formula for you may be:
[(220 - age) - resting heart rate] * desired intensity level + resting heart rate

as this at least takes into account your resting hear rate (take this in the morning before you get up).

Pines

Martinl & Daveym,

Thanks for the responses. I think I'll try a test like you suggest. The monitor does keep track of the maximum in a session, so no chance that I'll miss it.

As far as the formula with the resting heart rate goes, this is what I'm using... but it still means that the "100%" level is [220-age] (and incidentally means that my measured max of 188 today was a genuine 101% effort!).

I've been reading "Heart Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot" (yes it's spelt that way . The author figures that about 20% of people fall well outside the age based formulae. He has a measured HRmax of 191 where the age based formula would put him at 170. He also mentions a 40 year old runner with a predicted HRmax of 180 who measured an actual max of 162!

martinl

Pines wrote:

Martinl & Daveym,
I've been reading "Heart Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot" (yes it's spelt that way . The author figures that about 20% of people fall well outside the age based formulae. He has a measured HRmax of 191 where the age based formula would put him at 170. He also mentions a 40 year old runner with a predicted HRmax of 180 who measured an actual max of 162!

This reminds me of my Average HR during road races e.g. 5Km, 5Miles, 10Miles. My HRM during races was on average about 174, ocassionally I watched the HR during racing and can't remember the HR ever going over 180 or even coming close to it. Due to my age and the basic formular (220-age) it should have been at that time about 188.

Saying this - Dave's formular makes more sense, as it considers the RHR (resting heart rate), which would have brought the whole value further down as my RHR was at that time around 40-42bpm.

It would be interesting to compare the results of the two measurements:
1. formular considering the RHR and
2. the 6-8x 1min run

Maybe let us know what both results are.