How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Forum rules
The information / discussion in the Cycling Health Forum is not qualified medical advice. Please consult your doctor.
jerrah
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Jul 10, 2015 6:23 pm

How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby jerrah » Mon Oct 19, 2015 7:55 pm

The max heart rate calculation seems a bit cludgy. Is it really possible than 220 - AGE is the same for everyone and every year your max heart rate decreases by 1?

My max heart rate is calculated as 185 yet on a recent ride I topped 195 and spent a reasonable amount of time really pushing it. I didn't feel like I was pushing my heart at the time. Is this likely to be an accurate number or is my Garmin strap inflating my numbers? Should I be riding slower even though I feel fine? :shock:

Image

User avatar
RonK
Posts: 11508
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:08 pm
Location: If you need to know, ask me
Contact:

How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby RonK » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:01 pm

No - that is just an approximation, and a poor one at that.

For a more accurate determination, ask your GP about doing an exercise stress test, and have your heart function evaluated at the same time.
Cycle touring blog and tour journals: whispering wheels...

softy
Posts: 1665
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 3:44 pm

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby softy » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:16 pm

I would be carefully with this,

People don't always know their heart or condition. I had a significant 30% mitral valve leak and didn't even know it. I only found out when i had a medical applying for a new job. So i would suggest before pushing your heart rate get a medical professional to give you advice. Have a full check done too. Better safe than sorry.

People do die in runs and cycling events from heart conditions.

User avatar
Derny Driver
Posts: 3039
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:18 pm
Location: Wollongong

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Derny Driver » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:53 pm

It is so far off accurate its ridiculous.
A mate of mine for example 220 - 48 = 172, his real max is over 200 (HIGHER)
Chris Froome, 220-30 = 190, his real max is 174. (LOWER)

User avatar
Alex Simmons/RST
Expert
Posts: 4997
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 3:51 pm
Contact:

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:22 pm

Population wide the formula is reasonably accurate, but it's most definitely not individually precise and is not intended to be used for individual prescription. When actual HR max is compared with the population formula, it has a standard deviation of somewhere between 10-15 bpm (I can't recall precisely). IOW 95% of people are within 20-30 beats either side of what the formula suggests, which as you can see is quite a wide range.

kenwstr
Posts: 591
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:21 pm

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby kenwstr » Mon Oct 19, 2015 11:27 pm

Well, I'm 58 and have recorded valid (excluding static anomolies) readings to low 180s on the road bike at times and averages in the 160s for rides over 50 km. So 220 - age is a crock or rather it's a simple population average. There are other population average models that are more complex and accurate. Some argue that hr max is set genetically as a fixed potential for an individuals life and the only reason it appears to change is that fitness usually varies over time. But all I know is that it is what it is.

Ken

User avatar
clackers
Posts: 2065
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 10:48 am
Location: Melbourne

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby clackers » Tue Oct 20, 2015 8:04 pm

It's true of the population. Just like IQ and height.

But it doesn't describe *you*.

User avatar
Duck!
Expert
Posts: 9858
Joined: Tue May 21, 2013 8:21 pm
Location: On The Tools

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Duck! » Tue Oct 20, 2015 11:33 pm

There is no scientific grounding at all to the 220-age formula at all, but somehow it comes up with a reasonable enough approximation for most of the population to use as a starting guide. As others have said, the only way to test your true maximum is with a cardiac stress test under professional supervision.
I had a thought, but it got run over as it crossed my mind.

Top_Bhoy
Posts: 509
Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:19 pm

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Top_Bhoy » Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:20 pm

Duck! wrote:....the only way to test your true maximum is with a cardiac stress test under professional supervision.
For a couple of reasons, I think me knowing my max HR would be a good thing. Do you know how you go about organising one of these and an approximate cost?

Cheers

User avatar
RonK
Posts: 11508
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:08 pm
Location: If you need to know, ask me
Contact:

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby RonK » Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:21 pm

As I have already posted, get a referral from your GP.
Cycle touring blog and tour journals: whispering wheels...

kenwstr
Posts: 591
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2013 8:21 pm

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby kenwstr » Fri Oct 23, 2015 11:13 pm

For most practical purposes you just want to know your aerobic threshold which is around 80% MHR. Aerobic threshold is the maximum hr you can maintain for around 20 min. So just try to maintain a constant hr on a flat rd or track. Increase it each ride till you find your limit. This is probably going to be good enough for most people. Excepting seriou elite athletes. Seriously, there is no way I will submitt to a full blown stress test, way to dangerous IMO.

Ken

piledhigher
Posts: 483
Joined: Fri Feb 03, 2012 11:10 am
Location: Kew, Victoria

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby piledhigher » Fri Oct 23, 2015 11:40 pm

Duck! wrote:There is no scientific grounding at all to the 220-age formula at all, but somehow it comes up with a reasonable enough approximation for most of the population to use as a starting guide. As others have said, the only way to test your true maximum is with a cardiac stress test under professional supervision.
There is a scientific grounding, it is a good approximation of the mean of the population, unfortunately the standard deviation is ~10 beats which means that 95% of the population is +/- 20 beats of the rule and that next 4.7% is with +/-30 beats, and we'll just ignore the last .3% they are really freaks.

It's a bit like BMI, a population tool that has lots of anomalies when applied to a single individual but useful in characterising aggregate data sets.

User avatar
Derny Driver
Posts: 3039
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:18 pm
Location: Wollongong

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Derny Driver » Fri Oct 23, 2015 11:48 pm

kenwstr wrote:.... Seriously, there is no way I will submitt to a full blown stress test, way to dangerous IMO.

Ken
Many people have this worry that their heart is like a car engine, if you rev it too high it will eventually blow up. You cannot over-rev you heart. There is absolutely no problem with taking your heart to its 100% maximum beating capacity and keeping it there. You wont hurt it. You will just get tired and have to stop as the lactate builds up.
It is also not an easy thing to do, to get your heart to go to 100% maximum. You need adrenaline and a lot of coersion to get it there.

Top_Bhoy
Posts: 509
Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:19 pm

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Top_Bhoy » Sat Oct 24, 2015 5:17 am

RonK wrote:As I have already posted, get a referral from your GP.
If that is the only way then I have to do it but is there an alternative because I believe in going to the doctors only when I am actually ill. Otherwise, it seems an inefficient use of a finite resource not to mention an unnecessary cost to Medicare and me personally.

User avatar
Alex Simmons/RST
Expert
Posts: 4997
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 3:51 pm
Contact:

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Sat Oct 24, 2015 7:14 am

Derny Driver wrote:
kenwstr wrote:.... Seriously, there is no way I will submitt to a full blown stress test, way to dangerous IMO.

Ken
Many people have this worry that their heart is like a car engine, if you rev it too high it will eventually blow up. You cannot over-rev you heart. There is absolutely no problem with taking your heart to its 100% maximum beating capacity and keeping it there. You wont hurt it. You will just get tired and have to stop as the lactate builds up.
It is also not an easy thing to do, to get your heart to go to 100% maximum. You need adrenaline and a lot of coersion to get it there.
Yep, although there are some risk factors in certain cases that should cause pause before doing such an effort such as personal or family history of heart disease, those that are overweight/obese, smokers, sedentary people, older (e.g. over 35) especially if you have not exercised for a long time, other known medical risk factors, have a current or have had very recent illness/viral infection.

I think going "maximal" should be avoided until you've actually been riding/exercising regularly for some time and doing general efforts and hills etc are not causing any obvious sign of distress.

User avatar
RonK
Posts: 11508
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:08 pm
Location: If you need to know, ask me
Contact:

How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby RonK » Sat Oct 24, 2015 11:00 am

Derny Driver wrote:
kenwstr wrote:.... Seriously, there is no way I will submitt to a full blown stress test, way to dangerous IMO.

Ken
Many people have this worry that their heart is like a car engine, if you rev it too high it will eventually blow up. You cannot over-rev you heart. There is absolutely no problem with taking your heart to its 100% maximum beating capacity and keeping it there. You wont hurt it. You will just get tired and have to stop as the lactate builds up.
It is also not an easy thing to do, to get your heart to go to 100% maximum. You need adrenaline and a lot of coersion to get it there.
Yes, quite so. I did a stress test some years ago for exactly the reasons the OP posted. However I was not able to push myself on the treadmill to the quite same heart rate as I was seeing regularly on the bike (I was in my 40's, and was reaching 200 bpm on one particular long fast climb).
I did my test at the cardiac unit of a nearby hospital, connected to an ECG and blood pressure monitor. If the doctors (there were two) had detected any abnormal heart function they would have stopped the test immediately, and in the worst case (they joked) I was already in the cardiac unit.
The result of the test was that my heart function was found to be normal, with just a slight increase in blood pressure during the test. After that I was confident to push myself as hard as I could.
Cycle touring blog and tour journals: whispering wheels...

User avatar
cameronp
Posts: 114
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2015 1:12 pm
Location: Melbourne

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby cameronp » Sat Oct 24, 2015 11:34 am

Is it normal for less fit people to find it difficult to attain higher heart rates? Or to rephrase, do you need to do a certain amount of training before you can reach your heart's actual maximum when riding?

I only started using a heart rate monitor when cycling a few months ago. (Coinciding with a shift from "just going out for a ride" to "training to get faster".) At that time, the highest heart rate I'd see on the bike would be high 170s, compared to 190+ which I'd seen previously when running. Then I started seeing my heart get to the low 180s at the end of a long climb, but at that point I'd be gasping for breath and feeling absolutely wrecked. The other day I pushed myself as hard as I could on a local hill and was surprised to see 191 bpm. When I went back to look at the ride data I saw that I actually hit 190 a few times in the ride. I guess that means my max HR when cycling is higher than I thought it was! But it got me wondering - was my body always capable of working that hard and I'd just never pushed myself so much before, or has training improved other aspects of fitness that were limiting me first?

User avatar
Derny Driver
Posts: 3039
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:18 pm
Location: Wollongong

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Derny Driver » Sat Oct 24, 2015 11:58 am

cameronp wrote: The other day I pushed myself as hard as I could on a local hill and was surprised to see 191 bpm..... - was my body always capable of working that hard and I'd just never pushed myself so much before?
Yes.
In fact your max may be more than 191.
It is hard to hit your true maximum.

User avatar
Alex Simmons/RST
Expert
Posts: 4997
Joined: Fri May 02, 2008 3:51 pm
Contact:

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Sat Oct 24, 2015 1:41 pm

cameronp wrote:Is it normal for less fit people to find it difficult to attain higher heart rates? Or to rephrase, do you need to do a certain amount of training before you can reach your heart's actual maximum when riding?
That depends on how hard you are prepared to push yourself. Some people know how to "bury" themselves.

In general maximal HR drops a little with fitness. It just might be that some only really push themselves sufficiently hard once they are much fitter.

User avatar
foo on patrol
Posts: 9008
Joined: Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:12 am
Location: Sanstone Point QLD

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby foo on patrol » Sat Oct 24, 2015 2:28 pm

I regularly see mine up in the mid 190s and I'm 58yrs old but resting it is 75bpm. :wink:

Foo
I don't suffer fools easily and so long as you have done your best,you should have no regrets.
Goal 6000km

User avatar
outnabike
Posts: 2455
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 2:53 pm
Location: Melbourne Vic

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby outnabike » Sat Oct 24, 2015 5:19 pm

There is apparently an app on a kick starter program that is supposed to do the job if you hold it against your chest. Seems as though it is in need of a bit of work though.

http://www.news.com.au/national/breakin ... 7580281634" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Shorten has no heart
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015 ... ing-moment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Bill Shorten has no heart - or, at least, a heart rate monitor has been unable to find it.
The opposition leader's awkward moment played out in Melbourne on Friday after he offered to try out a smartphone stethoscope.
Holding the device to his chest, he waited a few moments for his heart and breathing rates to register on the smart phone.
But after 10 seconds, there was nothing.
"Oh, well," joked one of the designers of CliniCloud.
"Technology in progress."
Mr Shorten's minders were noticeably tense, but their leader shook off the malfunction.
"That's all right, I just have a very low blood pressure," Mr Shorten said.
Vivente World Randonneur complete with panniers

User avatar
ItsDank
Posts: 237
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 2:39 pm

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby ItsDank » Mon Nov 09, 2015 4:59 pm

Duck! wrote:There is no scientific grounding at all to the 220-age formula at all, but somehow it comes up with a reasonable enough approximation for most of the population to use as a starting guide. As others have said, the only way to test your true maximum is with a cardiac stress test under professional supervision.
This.

I just had an ECG stress test, echo stress test ultrasound and all the relevant bloods checked.

My HR max recorded is 252 BPM and I'll get up to 220 average with highs of 240 during a crit race. The chest straps are pretty accurate, my Garmin strap was within 2 BPM of the ECG the entire test.

Image

Some people have SVT, some people have naturally high HR's. 220 - your age isn't exactly science.
https://www.strava.com/activities/428497953/analysis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyway, after all that, I'm physically fine. I've always had a naturally high HR and apparently my body can handle it. The advice I've been given is to hold below 240 and don't go higher than that. For you, unless you go to a cardiologist and get tested, you won't know if it's normal or whether you've got a much more serious, underlying issue.

So TL;DR, see a cardiologist if you're worried.

User avatar
biker jk
Posts: 7001
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:18 pm
Location: Sydney

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby biker jk » Mon Nov 09, 2015 5:06 pm

ItsDank wrote:
Duck! wrote:There is no scientific grounding at all to the 220-age formula at all, but somehow it comes up with a reasonable enough approximation for most of the population to use as a starting guide. As others have said, the only way to test your true maximum is with a cardiac stress test under professional supervision.
This.

I just had an ECG stress test, echo stress test ultrasound and all the relevant bloods checked.

My HR max recorded is 252 BPM and I'll get up to 220 average with highs of 240 during a crit race. The chest straps are pretty accurate, my Garmin strap was within 2 BPM of the ECG the entire test.

Image

Some people have SVT, some people have naturally high HR's. 220 - your age isn't exactly science.
https://www.strava.com/activities/428497953/analysis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyway, after all that, I'm physically fine. I've always had a naturally high HR and apparently my body can handle it. The advice I've been given is to hold below 240 and don't go higher than that. For you, unless you go to a cardiologist and get tested, you won't know if it's normal or whether you've got a much more serious, underlying issue.

So TL;DR, see a cardiologist if you're worried.
I note nothing connected to the brain. :lol: :lol: :lol:

User avatar
ItsDank
Posts: 237
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 2:39 pm

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby ItsDank » Mon Nov 09, 2015 5:44 pm

biker jk wrote:
I note nothing connected to the brain. :lol: :lol: :lol:
Get's enough stress testing with work as is :)

User avatar
Derny Driver
Posts: 3039
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2012 12:18 pm
Location: Wollongong

Re: How accurate is max heart rate calculation?

Postby Derny Driver » Mon Nov 09, 2015 10:21 pm

ItsDank wrote:
I just had an ECG stress test, echo stress test ultrasound and all the relevant bloods checked.

My HR max recorded is 252 BPM ....
220 PLUS your age? :D :D :D

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users