Friday 15 February 2008

Maximum heart rate research


I've oone a little research into maximum heart rates (given TFR's recent run), but the overall conclusion is that these maximum heart rate calculators are entirely useless.

So let's go through them:

Basic formula: 200-age
Londeree and Moeschberger (1982): 206.3-(0.711 x age)
Miller et al (1993): 217-(0.85 x age)
USA researchers (2007): 206.9-(0.67 x age)
UK reseachers (2007): 202-(0.55 x age) for male athletes

Now applying each of these formulae for maximum heart rate to TFR's age gives a maximum heart rate of 182 (Londeree and Moeschberger) to 188 (Miller et al). Nothing like the 196 that TFR recorded on his latest run.

By the way, TFR has downloaded his heart rate from his Garmin Forerunner 305 to check whether this was a spike reading or not. The sad reading is that it wasn't a spike - his heart rate gradually crept up to this level as he sprinted for the finish...



In some ways, however, this is good news!

Now that TFR knows that his maximum heart rate is very different to that predicted by a formula, he can work out what his real heart rate training areas should be! More on that in the next post

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