Increase MaxHR

Just two thoughts: first, not sure if the 2 bpm difference is really significant, given the difficulty in finding a true MaxHR. If anything, I would interpret your numbers to say that your max has not dropped (which is unusual given that you stopped training and got older). Secondly, since you are now less fit, it may be "easier" for you to get to a higher HR. In other words, the more training you do, the lower your HR for a given effort (power); thus in a less trained state, it may be easier to hit a max than it was when you were a competitive triathlete.

I agree with Palewin that 2bpm is not significant and probably your MHR was higher than you thought earlier. I have thought that my MHR was 160 for 5 months, in part because the highest number I ever reached was 155 and I figured my max has to be several bpm higher than the highest number I can reach. Then, just yesterday I was fooling around with a constant speed pacing strategy for a hill climb. Holding a constant speed of 14mph resulted in power ranging from 170w to 450w with an average of 307w. I was so focused on maintaining a constant speed that I never looked at my HRM until the end of the climb and when I glanced at my HRM I was stunned to see 162. I did a double take because I had never seen anything higher than 155. After downloading my ride, I looked at it again, and sure enough it had climbed steadily to around 160 and peaked at 162. So, now I have to re-adjust my estimate of MHR to 165. Maybe it's even higher than that. It's still pretty meaningless.

Emery said:

Hello to all,
I wanted to know if anyone has ever experience an increase in their Max Heart Rate. I know it is not suppose to go up but here is what happened to me. Back last century, I was a competitive triathlete. I had a great endurance base as I would go run a marathon for a long weekend workout and did a sub 12 hour Ironman with little specific training.
Well, I owned several HRM's both Polar and Cardiosport and use to take my max HR biking, running and swimming and occasionally sleeping with the darn thing on to check waking HR.
In 2000, I decided to become familyman, so got married, had a child and learned to play golf (and got fatter, heavier, muscle atrophy, and sick alot).
I decided to go back to my favorite sport and began riding bikes again. Since there is no room in our bed for a HRM, wife and child, I don't check waking HR much anymore but resting runs in the low 40's again (formerly @32-36 in the 90's) and upon rechecking my MaxHR it had gone from a solid 188 in the mid 1990's to 190 for 2005 (tested twice same course). I am 40 years old now. I feel great, no systemic dz etc. I have read plenty of books by Friel, Burke, Carmicheal and Jenkins and see no mention of Max HR ever going up.
Any experience out there? I did have a heart murmur as a child that I out grew by age 20, thats all. Am I simply growing younger? Would anyone want to buy some of this.....gotta be the filtered water and vitamins right? Or could it sadly be newer HRMs are more accurate?
By the way, I am definitely NOT complaining about this but wonder if there could be some latent dz occuring or was I just overtrained in the 90's?

HR Max decreases with fitness, and increases with detraining. however with a difference of 2 b/min i wouldn't worry or give it much thought.

I was just concerned that every book I read said MaxHR decreases with age and prior to testing used the 220-age est and my %max function was over 100% numerous times. Thanks for the thoughts and sounds like normal variance, on the good side.

Emery said:

I was just concerned that every book I read said MaxHR decreases with age and prior to testing used the 220-age est and my %max function was over 100% numerous times. Thanks for the thoughts and sounds like normal variance, on the good side.

sorry, it does also decrease with age. the oft quoted 220-age has a standard deviation of something like +/- 15 b/min

ric

Emery said:

I was just concerned that every book I read said MaxHR decreases with age and prior to testing used the 220-age est and my %max function was over 100% numerous times. Thanks for the thoughts and sounds like normal variance, on the good side.

I'm 30 so MHR is 190. I don't think I have ever touched this high a HR. The highest I ever got was probably 178.

Did my MAP test.

-15 min. warm up with one minute moderate intensity at 7:30
-immediately began test at 100w
-increased increments at 10w per minute
-observed that I was having much difficulty staying in prescribed zone (i.e. Minute 10 = 200w, was fluctuating from 189 to 230)
-by minute 15 I reached my limit, breathing very heavily, 160-162 bpm, wattage 215-238. Prescribed wattage: 250
-realized that with proper motivation I could have gone longer...

-10 spin down
-tried to determine Tmax. Ramped up effort to critical power, FAR exceeded it (close to 400w or maybe more)...
-stopped, scratched head
-tried to hold 250w for as long as possible
-ended up holding avg. 270w for over 1 min. 30secs...

Weak, I know. But just trying to make sense of it all...

Sorry, I think I'm getting a bit OT

SketchySmurf said:

I'm 30 so MHR is 190. I don't think I have ever touched this high a HR. The highest I ever got was probably 178.

Did my MAP test.

-15 min. warm up with one minute moderate intensity at 7:30
-immediately began test at 100w
-increased increments at 10w per minute
-observed that I was having much difficulty staying in prescribed zone (i.e. Minute 10 = 200w, was fluctuating from 189 to 230)
-by minute 15 I reached my limit, breathing very heavily, 160-162 bpm, wattage 215-238. Prescribed wattage: 250
-realized that with proper motivation I could have gone longer...

-10 spin down
-tried to determine Tmax. Ramped up effort to critical power, FAR exceeded it (close to 400w or maybe more)...
-stopped, scratched head
-tried to hold 250w for as long as possible
-ended up holding avg. 270w for over 1 min. 30secs...

Weak, I know. But just trying to make sense of it all...

Sorry, I think I'm getting a bit OT

Not sure which "MAP" test you are using, but the one we use at RST is described here http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=powerstern, where you would use a 25 W/min (actually, 5 W/12 secs if possible) incremental rate, which would give you a much higher MAP than the test you have completed (i was just going to respond at Topica!).

I am not sure why you are using a critical power test as well as MAP (although it doesn't appear to be critical power test as described within the literature).

It seems, perhaps, that you are trying to complete too many different tests in one session with perhaps a not to clear idea of what you're doing? I'm not sure though?

Anyway, i would suggest using one style of coaching tests and the zones associated with that test. Obviously we recommend using the MAP test and further supplemental tests in some cases.

let me know if we can help further
ric

SketchySmurf said:

I'm 30 so MHR is 190. I don't think I have ever touched this high a HR. The highest I ever got was probably 178.

Which puts you right in the +/-15 bpm standard deivation. I would argue that your MHR is 178.

I'm 36 and my observed max is around 200 bpm (which also puts me right in the range). I haven't seen it that in a while. I have seen 230+ a few times, but that has to be interference. I still have my HMR set for a max of 191. It "amazes" my buddies when I'm at "95%" and I'm talking away.

The bottom line to find ones true max you really should be tested.

L

ric_stern/RST said:

Not sure which "MAP" test you are using, but the one we use at RST is described here http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=powerstern, where you would use a 25 W/min (actually, 5 W/12 secs if possible) incremental rate, which would give you a much higher MAP than the test you have completed (i was just going to respond at Topica!).

I am not sure why you are using a critical power test as well as MAP (although it doesn't appear to be critical power test as described within the literature).

It seems, perhaps, that you are trying to complete too many different tests in one session with perhaps a not to clear idea of what you're doing? I'm not sure though?

Anyway, i would suggest using one style of coaching tests and the zones associated with that test. Obviously we recommend using the MAP test and further supplemental tests in some cases.

let me know if we can help further
ric

Ric
Yes, I was a little embarassed to post here because I deviated somewhat from your protocol. I followed a different one because, exactly as you had mentioned it involved zones and workouts based on those results. On the face of it though, I thought the tests were similar enough to produce the same results.

I am following Ross' Maximum Performance Cycling. He has you determine critical power (the ramp up) then your Tmax (how long you can hold CP.) But the issue is, I can reach a much much higher Power for the Tmax portion, so all I did was try and hold my CP from the first test.

And this question should apply to your schema as well, it was severely difficult to hold wattage to within 10w. I was either under or overshooting the prescribed range.

I thought I might give the topica lists a shot, but realized its populated by the same folks on these boards.
:o

SketchySmurf said:

Ric
Yes, I was a little embarassed to post here because I deviated somewhat from your protocol. I followed a different one because, exactly as you had mentioned it involved zones and workouts based on those results. On the face of it though, I thought the tests were similar enough to produce the same results.

many of the tests that are available will generally require you to use the zones that go with the test as a % of one test will result in different levels with a different test (hope that makes sense?).

With a 10 W/min incremental rate the zones would be completely different.

Quoted post said:

I am following Ross' Maximum Performance Cycling. He has you determine critical power (the ramp up)

don't know anything about him, but this is an incorrect use of the term "critical power" which is well defined previously in the literature (additionally Joe Friel does or used to use the term incorrectly as well).

Critical power is a series of tests (usually 2 or 3) that range in time from seconds to minutes and by plotting the results of work done for those power/time durations and using y = mx + C you can extrapolate power at different time zones further along the scale (that you haven't tested), to e.g., arrive at one hour power. Depending on how short you test will have a bearing on the whether this over or under estimates critical power.

Quoted post said:

then your Tmax (how long you can hold CP.) But the issue is, I can reach a much much higher Power for the Tmax portion, so all I did was try and hold my CP from the first test.

this now sounds like the testing as developed by veronique billat...

i think you asked this at Topica: whatever power you arrive at, at MAP (whoever's MAP) you can exceed this for seconds plus.

Quoted post said:

And this question should apply to your schema as well, it was severely difficult to hold wattage to within 10w. I was either under or overshooting the prescribed range.

unless you have the use of a controlled ergometer it will be impossible to hold the power rock solid. This is immaterial however. What you are aiming to do (at least with a MAP test, and as far as i'm concerned) is to aim for the specific power and not worry that it varies a little. Obviously if you are supposed to be at 200 W and you're cranking 400 W you've gone wrong, but if it momentarily goes to 220 W that's fine. when you look at a MAP test you can see the power spiking up and down above and below the prescribed power, but if you were to fit a trend line to it, or a rolling average it should be much closer to the prescribed power.

Hope that helps.

Ric

First, I suspect that using we posters as a population, we could "prove" Ric's +/- 15 bpm std deviation on the 220-age formula. Sketchy apparantly has a HRMax lower than the formula would predict. I'm 58, so by formula my max should be 162, but dumping my PT files after races I've found maxes around 178, once as high as 180 bpm. Which shows that the formula is useless for individuals defining HR training ranges, even if it might be valid for large populations. One thing I'm curious about: in an earlier post, Ric said maxHR declines with training. I'm aware that with training, for a given power output, HR declines; I've seen that clearly enough in my own stats. But does that mean that for all-out efforts (and for me that means racing, I can't push myself as hard by myself) HRmax should also be lower? I'd hate to think that at this stage (actually at the point in the season and training year where I'm really losing enthusiasm for - but continuing -structured training - last race mid-Sept.) I'm untrained... (Perhaps if I review the maxHR stats I would see a declining trend, admit I haven't done that degree of calculation.)