Max Heart Rate
I've always just used the standard(ish) formula to determine my max heart rate and then the various heart rate zones to train in. The one I liked is the 207 - 0.7 x age method. For me that results in a max heart rate of 170bpm.
Recently, I was watching some YouTube videos that suggested it would be far better to determine your actual max heart rate through an informal or formal fitness test. So, today I set out to do that.
The run was structured like this:
- Easyish first kilometre to get at least a little bit warmed up and ready to push things hard.
- Two more kilometres at escalating pace to get up to a higher heart rate and ready the body and mind for a big effort.
- 800m at close to maximum effort to ramp things up and stress the body more.
- Short slower 400m to recover and then...
- A very hard effort for as long as was sustainable, on a moderate incline just to add to the fun.
The result of this was that I hit 161bpm at the top end of that last effort. I probably could have gone another 15 seconds and maybe pushed up the heart rate a few bpm more, but that was me really giving it everything. So let's call it 165bpm?
That seems reasonable to me, although the various calculations would have me at about 170bpm. That seems a bit high for me, but I also have a genetically lower heart rate including a resting heart rate in the low 40's and when I'm really working on the marathon training, in the high 30's.
I might repeat that test at some point here and perhaps push just a bit more, or maybe just run a flat out 5km on a track and see what happens. The other option would be to do a proper VO2 Max and max heart rate test at one of those places that hooks you up to a mask on a treadmill and tries to get you to pass out while running.