Maximum heart rate question
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JAT74
Posts: 1,078 Member
I have a Polar FT7 which I just got back as it was broken for a while and has just been replaced. It's great having it again as I can keep an eye on my HR during workouts and see how many calories I'm burning but not sure if there is a highest maximum heart rate range I should try and stay within?
All you ever hear is that you need to push yourself during exercise to burn those calories but yesterday while doing a cardio workout in the gym my heart rate was hovering between 140 & 150 for most of the 45 minutes but this morning during both my cardio workout and HIIT/resistence workout it was between 160 & 180 most of the time with calorie burns after 35-40 minutes for each workout at around 340.
What kind of readings do most of you with HRMs get in terms of burns and heart rate during workouts?
All you ever hear is that you need to push yourself during exercise to burn those calories but yesterday while doing a cardio workout in the gym my heart rate was hovering between 140 & 150 for most of the 45 minutes but this morning during both my cardio workout and HIIT/resistence workout it was between 160 & 180 most of the time with calorie burns after 35-40 minutes for each workout at around 340.
What kind of readings do most of you with HRMs get in terms of burns and heart rate during workouts?
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Replies
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The general guideline for maximum heart rate is 220 - your age. For light cardio, you should be at 60 - 70%, for intense cardio, you should be at 75 - 90%
What you were doing with resistance is actually a circuit training (they are misusing the name HIIT). True HIIT has you going full out for 20 - 30 seconds and then having a recovery period of 60 - 120 seconds. In that, you’ll run your heart rate up into the 95 - 110% range for that work period, and during recovery, you’re trying to get your heart rate back down to around 50 - 60%. If you’re doing this right, you’ll only be able to do this 5 - 10 cycles (I usually tap out at 8 rounds).
All of that said, I am not a fan of burning calories for the sake of losing weight. Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. If you’re eating at a small deficit, you’ll lose weight slowly and steadily (the healthy way). Exercise should be done to improve other aspects of health (strength, endurance, muscle mass gain/retention, cardiovascular, mobility, balance, speed, agility, etc.). And then you eat back those workout calories to fuel the next workout.
Patience and persistence are the keys to success in fat loss and health improvement.0 -
No idea about calorie burn, but keep in mind that the equation AllanMisner posted is a statistical average, that means many people will be above and many below. My HRmax is at around 205, while it 'should' only be below 180.0
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Everyone is different. At 28 years old my max HR is 192, the highest I've ever seen it go is 185 so I guess it is pretty accurate for me. Don't get hung up on what it should or shouldn't be doing, just listen to your body! That being said if your HR is regularly over
180 without good reason (ie hard cardio work), you might want to check in with your doctor.0 -
Well judging by that calculation I am generally at 80% of maximum for cardio in the gym and 95% for intense cardio and circuit training/HIIT.
Basically what I'm doing for what I called HIIT/resistence or circuit training is workout DVDs like Jillian Michaels/Insanity type programmes for 30 minutes each which are designed to work you hard.
Of course I am careful with my diet and try and eat the right quantity for weight loss (I don't add on ANY extra calories to take into account my workouts each day) but I was asking the question more from a health point of view and to see if there was a problem healthwise in working at such a high heart rate, though for me I can't seem to get it down lower if I work hard. I suppose if it isn't so good to get my HR so high, I could try and rest a bit more during the workouts but I really don't know if this is necessary.
In addition, I would be happy if increased calorie burns also mean increased fat loss.0 -
Thanks jmaidan it is never regularly high for no reason, only when I work hard and the highest I've seen it get to so far is about 180-185 ever. For my age it shouldn't be above 180 maximum but as you've said that is just an average calculation.0
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AllanMisner wrote: »The general guideline for maximum heart rate is 220 - your age. For light cardio, you should be at 60 - 70%, for intense cardio, you should be at 75 - 90%
What you were doing with resistance is actually a circuit training (they are misusing the name HIIT). True HIIT has you going full out for 20 - 30 seconds and then having a recovery period of 60 - 120 seconds. In that, you’ll run your heart rate up into the 95 - 110% range for that work period, and during recovery, you’re trying to get your heart rate back down to around 50 - 60%. If you’re doing this right, you’ll only be able to do this 5 - 10 cycles (I usually tap out at 8 rounds).
All of that said, I am not a fan of burning calories for the sake of losing weight. Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. If you’re eating at a small deficit, you’ll lose weight slowly and steadily (the healthy way). Exercise should be done to improve other aspects of health (strength, endurance, muscle mass gain/retention, cardiovascular, mobility, balance, speed, agility, etc.). And then you eat back those workout calories to fuel the next workout.
Patience and persistence are the keys to success in fat loss and health improvement.
This equation would give me a maximum HR of 155 at 90%, that's the first time I've seen the second part of the 95-110% for HIIT and I'm glad to see it as I frequently go over my max heart rate and just apply the 'can I speak lucidly' / 'do I want to die?' test ... I always wondered if I got that wrong0 -
Well ladies, it seems the 'old 220' study review of information revealed very few women were in the studies to determine 220. So March of last year the American College of Cardiology provided an updated set of equations. From the findings:
'Women in the age range of 40 to 89 years should expect their maximum heart rate to be 200 minus 67 percent of their age. In men, the formula is 216 minus 93 percent of their age. For women younger than 40, the relationship of heart rate to age may be different, as an insufficient number of tests on women younger than 40 were available to provide reliable results.'
How much will this change your numbers posted above? IDK but at least they have provided something with greater accuracy for women. Best of luck on your goals.0 -
AllanMisner wrote: »The general guideline for maximum heart rate is 220 - your age. For light cardio, you should be at 60 - 70%, for intense cardio, you should be at 75 - 90%
What you were doing with resistance is actually a circuit training (they are misusing the name HIIT). True HIIT has you going full out for 20 - 30 seconds and then having a recovery period of 60 - 120 seconds. In that, you’ll run your heart rate up into the 95 - 110% range for that work period, and during recovery, you’re trying to get your heart rate back down to around 50 - 60%. If you’re doing this right, you’ll only be able to do this 5 - 10 cycles (I usually tap out at 8 rounds).
All of that said, I am not a fan of burning calories for the sake of losing weight. Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. If you’re eating at a small deficit, you’ll lose weight slowly and steadily (the healthy way). Exercise should be done to improve other aspects of health (strength, endurance, muscle mass gain/retention, cardiovascular, mobility, balance, speed, agility, etc.). And then you eat back those workout calories to fuel the next workout.
Patience and persistence are the keys to success in fat loss and health improvement.
This equation would give me a maximum HR of 155 at 90%, that's the first time I've seen the second part of the 95-110% for HIIT and I'm glad to see it as I frequently go over my max heart rate and just apply the 'can I speak lucidly' / 'do I want to die?' test ... I always wondered if I got that wrong
I call it the, "Can I still dial 9-1-1" test.
Bumping for interest. I've seen a couple HIIT explanations, but this is the first I'm seeing that the peak HR should be 95-110% of max. I've been seeing 80-90% of max for peak and 50-60% for rest. I was going to post a thread today on this very topic because my peak HR seems to be a decent bit higher than what I projected at 80-90%.
@AllanMisner, do you have a source for those numbers?
Also, based on your statement of eating back exercise calories (which I do), how do you calculate the calorie loss from HIIT?0 -
_Terrapin_ wrote: »Well ladies, it seems the 'old 220' study review of information revealed very few women were in the studies to determine 220. So March of last year the American College of Cardiology provided an updated set of equations. From the findings:
'Women in the age range of 40 to 89 years should expect their maximum heart rate to be 200 minus 67 percent of their age. In men, the formula is 216 minus 93 percent of their age. For women younger than 40, the relationship of heart rate to age may be different, as an insufficient number of tests on women younger than 40 were available to provide reliable results.'
How much will this change your numbers posted above? IDK but at least they have provided something with greater accuracy for women. Best of luck on your goals.
Interesting - that equation brings me to 168.5 (the 0.5 is important)
I'm pretty sure that might kill me
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There's a huge range of what is a person's true max HR. Any age related formula is just a rough guide.
Without testing it's a reasonable estimate but unless you are in serious training it's not that vital to know.
If you are fit and healthy you can test your own and get a better idea but actual testing in a sports lab is seriously nasty! Took me three days to completely recover.
I'm not that far from the formula prediction.....
By the 220 - my age formula my max HR should be 165
Self tested max on a Concept2 rower gave me 172
Sports lab as part of a VO2 max test saw me hit 1760 -
AllanMisner wrote: »The general guideline for maximum heart rate is 220 - your age. For light cardio, you should be at 60 - 70%, for intense cardio, you should be at 75 - 90%
What you were doing with resistance is actually a circuit training (they are misusing the name HIIT). True HIIT has you going full out for 20 - 30 seconds and then having a recovery period of 60 - 120 seconds. In that, you’ll run your heart rate up into the 95 - 110% range for that work period, and during recovery, you’re trying to get your heart rate back down to around 50 - 60%. If you’re doing this right, you’ll only be able to do this 5 - 10 cycles (I usually tap out at 8 rounds).
All of that said, I am not a fan of burning calories for the sake of losing weight. Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. If you’re eating at a small deficit, you’ll lose weight slowly and steadily (the healthy way). Exercise should be done to improve other aspects of health (strength, endurance, muscle mass gain/retention, cardiovascular, mobility, balance, speed, agility, etc.). And then you eat back those workout calories to fuel the next workout.
Patience and persistence are the keys to success in fat loss and health improvement.
This is fine if you are looking for a baseline. There's a newer formula called the Karvonen formula. I like applying that one over the old version.
Here's a good link to check it out:
http://www.acefitness.org/blog/3502/advances-in-aerobic-training-how-to-apply-the-new
Here's how I calculate mine outside of doing the VO2Max and metabolic test:
HRRMax = 208-(.7*age)
My age is 46 as of today, so the formula is applied here:
HRRMax = 208-(.7*46)
Result:
HRRMax (100%) = 175.8 ~176 rounded for sanity.
To get your training zones, then apply the HRRMax to the rest of the formula:
(HRRMax-HRRRest)*HRRT%+HRRRest
My resting HR is 50.
For example, this is how I would calculate all of my zones using this formula:
HRR60%: (176-50)*.6)+50 = ~125
HRR70%: (176-50)*.7)+50 = ~138
HRR80%: (176-50)*.8)+50 = ~151
HRR90%: (176-50)*.9)+50 = ~163
When I did my VO2Max test - my zones were about 5 beats lower per zone.
Hope this helps!0 -
tedboosalis7 wrote: »AllanMisner wrote: »The general guideline for maximum heart rate is 220 - your age. For light cardio, you should be at 60 - 70%, for intense cardio, you should be at 75 - 90%
What you were doing with resistance is actually a circuit training (they are misusing the name HIIT). True HIIT has you going full out for 20 - 30 seconds and then having a recovery period of 60 - 120 seconds. In that, you’ll run your heart rate up into the 95 - 110% range for that work period, and during recovery, you’re trying to get your heart rate back down to around 50 - 60%. If you’re doing this right, you’ll only be able to do this 5 - 10 cycles (I usually tap out at 8 rounds).
All of that said, I am not a fan of burning calories for the sake of losing weight. Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. If you’re eating at a small deficit, you’ll lose weight slowly and steadily (the healthy way). Exercise should be done to improve other aspects of health (strength, endurance, muscle mass gain/retention, cardiovascular, mobility, balance, speed, agility, etc.). And then you eat back those workout calories to fuel the next workout.
Patience and persistence are the keys to success in fat loss and health improvement.
This is fine if you are looking for a baseline. There's a newer formula called the Karvonen formula. I like applying that one over the old version.
Here's a good link to check it out:
http://www.acefitness.org/blog/3502/advances-in-aerobic-training-how-to-apply-the-new
Here's how I calculate mine outside of doing the VO2Max and metabolic test:
HRRMax = 208-(.7*age)
My age is 46 as of today, so the formula is applied here:
HRRMax = 208-(.7*46)
Result:
HRRMax (100%) = 175.8 ~176 rounded for sanity.
To get your training zones, then apply the HRRMax to the rest of the formula:
(HRRMax-HRRRest)*HRRT%+HRRRest
My resting HR is 50.
For example, this is how I would calculate all of my zones using this formula:
HRR60%: (176-50)*.6)+50 = ~125
HRR70%: (176-50)*.7)+50 = ~138
HRR80%: (176-50)*.8)+50 = ~151
HRR90%: (176-50)*.9)+50 = ~163
When I did my VO2Max test - my zones were about 5 beats lower per zone.
Hope this helps!
BTW - I should've just used "HR" instead of "HRR" as that stands for Heart Rate Reserve. The formula still applies though. Sorry about that.0 -
_Terrapin_ wrote: »Well ladies, it seems the 'old 220' study review of information revealed very few women were in the studies to determine 220. So March of last year the American College of Cardiology provided an updated set of equations. From the findings:
'Women in the age range of 40 to 89 years should expect their maximum heart rate to be 200 minus 67 percent of their age. In men, the formula is 216 minus 93 percent of their age. For women younger than 40, the relationship of heart rate to age may be different, as an insufficient number of tests on women younger than 40 were available to provide reliable results.'
How much will this change your numbers posted above? IDK but at least they have provided something with greater accuracy for women. Best of luck on your goals.
Interesting - that equation brings me to 168.5 (the 0.5 is important)
I'm pretty sure that might kill me
I am soon glad I posted this; killing you would suck. I thought it would be insignificant for many. . .then again. And, they are averages, so ta da!
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According to the new calculations my MHR should therefore be 173, but during my test today I reached 170 for most of the workouts and peaked at 180 so that means I'm working at 100% +. For calorie burns for HIIT I go by my HRM though it always seems a bit high so I log slightly less when putting in workouts on MFP (though as said before I don't eat back exercise calories anyway).0
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tedboosalis7 wrote: »AllanMisner wrote: »The general guideline for maximum heart rate is 220 - your age. For light cardio, you should be at 60 - 70%, for intense cardio, you should be at 75 - 90%
What you were doing with resistance is actually a circuit training (they are misusing the name HIIT). True HIIT has you going full out for 20 - 30 seconds and then having a recovery period of 60 - 120 seconds. In that, you’ll run your heart rate up into the 95 - 110% range for that work period, and during recovery, you’re trying to get your heart rate back down to around 50 - 60%. If you’re doing this right, you’ll only be able to do this 5 - 10 cycles (I usually tap out at 8 rounds).
All of that said, I am not a fan of burning calories for the sake of losing weight. Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. If you’re eating at a small deficit, you’ll lose weight slowly and steadily (the healthy way). Exercise should be done to improve other aspects of health (strength, endurance, muscle mass gain/retention, cardiovascular, mobility, balance, speed, agility, etc.). And then you eat back those workout calories to fuel the next workout.
Patience and persistence are the keys to success in fat loss and health improvement.
This is fine if you are looking for a baseline. There's a newer formula called the Karvonen formula. I like applying that one over the old version.
Here's a good link to check it out:
http://www.acefitness.org/blog/3502/advances-in-aerobic-training-how-to-apply-the-new
Here's how I calculate mine outside of doing the VO2Max and metabolic test:
HRRMax = 208-(.7*age)
My age is 46 as of today, so the formula is applied here:
HRRMax = 208-(.7*46)
Result:
HRRMax (100%) = 175.8 ~176 rounded for sanity.
To get your training zones, then apply the HRRMax to the rest of the formula:
(HRRMax-HRRRest)*HRRT%+HRRRest
My resting HR is 50.
For example, this is how I would calculate all of my zones using this formula:
HRR60%: (176-50)*.6)+50 = ~125
HRR70%: (176-50)*.7)+50 = ~138
HRR80%: (176-50)*.8)+50 = ~151
HRR90%: (176-50)*.9)+50 = ~163
When I did my VO2Max test - my zones were about 5 beats lower per zone.
Hope this helps!
This is the most recent information I've seen, and it's what I've been using lately, but I didn't know the name of the formula.
I'm 35 (close enough, anyway) with a resting heart rate of about 65 (been a while since I checked).
MAX = 208-(.7*35) = 183.5 rounded to 184.
(Max-Rest)*%+Rest
60% = (184-65)*.6+65= 136
70% = (184-65)*.7+65= 148
80% = (184-65)*.8+65= 160
90% = (184-65)*.9+65= 172
My peaks frequently exceed the 172 mark, and I've been worried that I've been over-exerting myself.
I'll be speaking to my PCP about this next month at my annual physical, but my exercise HR seems to be higher than I expected. When I do my steady-state runs, I'm often around 165 for the duration, which aligns closer to high intensity based on those calculations.
Is anyone aware of any literature on how this might vary from one individual to the next?0 -
According to the new calculations my MHR should therefore be 173, but during my test today I reached 170 for most of the workouts and peaked at 180 so that means I'm working at 100% +. For calorie burns for HIIT I go by my HRM though it always seems a bit high so I log slightly less when putting in workouts on MFP (though as said before I don't eat back exercise calories anyway).
I'm pretty sure the formulas (algorithms? I don't technology very well) used by HRMs to calculate calorie burns are based on steady-state cardio and become pretty inaccurate when trying to measure interval training burns. I haven't been able to find a good source yet to provide guidance on that because I do eat back my exercise calories and want every single one of those mofos!
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_Terrapin_ wrote: »Well ladies, it seems the 'old 220' study review of information revealed very few women were in the studies to determine 220. So March of last year the American College of Cardiology provided an updated set of equations. From the findings:
'Women in the age range of 40 to 89 years should expect their maximum heart rate to be 200 minus 67 percent of their age. In men, the formula is 216 minus 93 percent of their age. For women younger than 40, the relationship of heart rate to age may be different, as an insufficient number of tests on women younger than 40 were available to provide reliable results.'
How much will this change your numbers posted above? IDK but at least they have provided something with greater accuracy for women. Best of luck on your goals.
LOL! That equation is even worse for me! I'm 41, hence the HRmax should be around 176 or so with that equation. No comparison to the tested 205. I can still sing along songs with a heart rate of 180. The only moment where the high heart rate is annoying is when I do a spontaneous sprint for the bus and my heart rate shoots up from just over 60 to idon'tknowwhat. But once I can run for a bit longer than 5 minutes I'll be working on that by doing little sprint intervals and the likes.
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According to the new calculations my MHR should therefore be 173, but during my test today I reached 170 for most of the workouts and peaked at 180 so that means I'm working at 100% +.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. As upthread you don't really need to know with a high level of accuracy until you're pretty high performing competitive. Just work on the basis of Rate of Percieved Exertion.
fwiw I'll consistently get in the realms of 195-200 when I'm doing sprint intervals.For calorie burns for HIIT I go by my HRM though it always seems a bit high
Yes, they're designed based on research done on steady state aerobic range activity, so anaerobic intervals will read high, as will low intensity effort like walking.
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A question: is it possible to set custom HRs with those monitors, or do they all work with this 220-age equation? Thanks.0
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You can manually adjust your HR range on the Polar FT4 - I'm sure that's fairly standard0
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