Heart Rate, am I pushing myself too far

"Grant" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I am 43 years old, and feel pretty fit, I ride around 100 km's a week.
I am always pushing myself, and today I hit 185 on my Polar HR monitor
sprinting up a very steep short hill.

Does this make my maximum HR 185 ?

Yes, possibly higher.

Quoted message said:

As it should be 177 ( 220 - age )

This has been explained MANY times in the last month.
That formula is a ROUGH estimate. It is at least 5bpm
off for me.

Quoted message said:

My friend told me I will kill myself, is he right ?

You are typing this question.. the effort can't have been
'too' fatal ;-)

Quoted message said:

I always ride at around 75% of my Max HR for over
an hour or so. Am I risking anything ?
Please give me some advice before I kill myself like my friend says ?

If you are worried.. see a doctor. We are just bike forum
geeks and I at least am not qualified to make any decisions
about your fitness. Having said that, the human body is pretty
bloody good at protecting itself. If you are fit it is quite likely
that you can exceed the 'formula of confusion' safely. Your
body should conk out before you kill yourself.. but, hey, it's
fun trying, right? I can think of worse ways to go.

hippy

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>> "Grant" == Grant <[email hidden]> writes:

Grant> Does this make my maximum HR 185 ? As it should be 177 ( 220
Grant> - age )

Your Max HR is exactly that, the maximum you can get your heart up to.
If you can get it up to 185 then that's your max. The maths is just a
best guess finger in the wind estimate.

Grant> My friend told me I will kill myself, is he right ?

Grant> I always ride at around 75% of my Max HR for over an hour or
Grant> so. Am I risking anything ? Please give me some advice
Grant> before I kill myself like my friend says ?

That depends. If you tried to sustain Max HR then you probably will do
yourself damage. Think of your Max HR as the fastest your engine can
go. The red line is a bit below that. You drive a car red lining all
the time, same with the body.

For fitness purposes there is little reason to go in to the 90% + range
unless you are seeking competitive improvement in speed etc. I'm not a
competitive cyclist, just a bog standard commuter and not a particularly
fast one at that. Basically I ride hard Monday and Thursday although
rarely get above 85% Max HR, the rest of the week I stay below 70% to
avoid over training.

Must be doing something right, resting HR is 42.
--
Cheers
Euan

<[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

That depends. If you tried to sustain Max HR then you probably will do
yourself damage. Think of your Max HR as the fastest your engine can
go. The red line is a bit below that. You drive a car red lining all
the time, same with the body.

Kinda, but you can't do HRmax efforts all the time. So,
imagine the car above had a rev limiter. Have you tried
sprinting, flat out for 10secs? Right then wait 10secs and
do it again.. and again.. and again.. etc. Unless you have
super legs, you will tire and should find that your max for
each effort will be lower than the previous (well, it'll go
up at first until you actually run out of juice). This is why
I figure it's hard to do damage whilst trying to attain
HRmax. Maybe with older dudes/dudettes there are
other issues (dodgy ticker, etc) but I thought the body
will cut out before self-destruction?

hippy

"hippy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Grant" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

As it should be 177 ( 220 - age )

This has been explained MANY times in the last month.
That formula is a ROUGH estimate. It is at least 5bpm
off for me.

My max has been pretty much the same for at least 12 years. In fact, there
was a long period in between when I thought it was a few bpm lower, but I'm
attributing that to overtraining, as I can now hit 193 again in an all out
effort. Therefore, I conclude that I have stopped aging ;-)

Jeff

Quoted message said:

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>> "hippy" == hippy <[email hidden]> writes:

hippy> <[email hidden]> wrote in message
hippy> news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

That depends. If you tried to sustain Max HR then you probably
will do yourself damage. Think of your Max HR as the fastest
your engine can go. The red line is a bit below that. You drive
a car red lining all the time, same with the body.

hippy> Kinda, but you can't do HRmax efforts all the time. So,
hippy> imagine the car above had a rev limiter. Have you tried
hippy> sprinting, flat out for 10secs?

Sorry, meant to write "you _can't_ red line a car all the time, same
with your body."
--
Cheers
Euan

In article <[email hidden]>,

Jeff Jones' jeff@cyclingnews-punt-com said:

Therefore, I conclude that I have stopped aging

And we all know when that happens...

--
Shane Stanley

"hippy" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Maybe with older dudes/dudettes there are
other issues (dodgy ticker, etc) but I thought the body
will cut out before self-destruction?

You don't have to be old to die of a dodgy ticker - my grandfather died of a
heart attack at 35 years (tell a doctor that and they start fitting you up
for a casket).

If you have any family history of cardiac disease get a full cardiac work up
done before you stress the heart - the best way to find out you have heart
problems is during the stress test in the hospital, not when you have a
heart attack in traffic at 40kms per hour.

"Shane Stanley" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Jeff Jones' jeff@cyclingnews-punt-com said:

Therefore, I conclude that I have stopped aging

And we all know when that happens...

Yep. You probably won't see me posting anything for a while.

(the spirit of) Jeff

No worries. I am 45 and thought my max was 220-45=175. Only occasionally hit
175 so figured it was my max. Cycling 150-250k per week. Then on one ride I
raced another cyclist up a hill and was clearly at my max in the last 400m.
Checked my monitor later on the PC and saw 185!!! I was stoked.

Just because you cycle "hard" for a period doesn't mean you have tested your
max limits. Try a hill with moderate slope (10 mins) steadily steepening
and steadily increase your effort until you are clearly about to blow up.

"Grant" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I am 43 years old, and feel pretty fit, I ride around 100 km's a week.
I am always pushing myself, and today I hit 185 on my Polar HR monitor
sprinting up a very steep short hill.

Does this make my maximum HR 185 ?
As it should be 177 ( 220 - age )

My friend told me I will kill myself, is he right ?

I always ride at around 75% of my Max HR for over an hour or so.
Am I risking anything ?
Please give me some advice before I kill myself like my friend says ?

richie said:

No worries. I am 45 and thought my max was 220-45=175. Only occasionally hit
175 so figured it was my max. Cycling 150-250k per week. Then on one ride I
raced another cyclist up a hill and was clearly at my max in the last 400m.
Checked my monitor later on the PC and saw 185!!! I was stoked.

Just because you cycle "hard" for a period doesn't mean you have tested your
max limits. Try a hill with moderate slope (10 mins) steadily steepening
and steadily increase your effort until you are clearly about to blow up.

Watch out for an exploding cyclist at a hill near you.

"richie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

No worries. I am 45 and thought my max was 220-45=175. Only occasionally

hit

Quoted message said:

175 so figured it was my max. Cycling 150-250k per week. Then on one ride

I

Quoted message said:

raced another cyclist up a hill and was clearly at my max in the last

400m.

Quoted message said:

Checked my monitor later on the PC and saw 185!!! I was stoked.

Just because you cycle "hard" for a period doesn't mean you have tested

your

Quoted message said:

max limits. Try a hill with moderate slope (10 mins) steadily steepening
and steadily increase your effort until you are clearly about to blow up.

...and even that wont necessarily get your max. I've
always got higher HR's just after a sprint in a race.
Crits are good because they are fairly high tempo
but long enough to get a bit of HR creep up. The
final sprint is usually after an even faster pace so
you're right up there and then there's the adrenalin
kick and the fight for a win that forces you into
new HR zones :-)
Climbing hills and especially riding alone never
seems to get the HR to 'max' for me.

hippy

hippy said:

Climbing hills and especially riding alone never
seems to get the HR to 'max' for me.

hippy

That first short hill on Sunday's (think it's Old Warrandyte Rd),
without fail gets me to 174 or 175 BPM which is only about 2 off my
highest ever at the end of a tri. On that final rise on the climb out of
Warrandyte, where I feel like I'm about to collapse, I always check to
see if I've broken 180 only to find it is around 165. I think the
difference is that on the first hill the muscles are fresh and the only
limiter is the heart so I get it up to 170+ without feeling that bad.
Whereas on the second one my muscles are tired and they are the limiter.

DaveB