Heart Rate

How are you sure it's accurate?

The Mayo Clinic says "You can calculate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. For example, if you're 45 years old, subtract 45 from 220 to get a maximum heart rate of 175. This is the average maximum number of times your heart should beat per minute during exercise."

It also says "It's important to note that maximum heart rate is only a guide. You may have a higher or lower maximum heart rate, sometimes by as much as 15 to 20 beats per minute. If you want a more specific range, consider discussing your target heart rate zone with an exercise physiologist or a personal trainer."


I don't know how old you are, but if you're older than 20ish, you may want to ask a doctor or something.

My max hr is a lot higher as well. But I'm fit, and when I stop the activity it comes down quickly. If you don't know how to make sense of it just ignore it.

You become better at running by running longer. You do that by running relatively slow. Slow running is a pace where you're still able to talk in coherent sentences, maybe even sing to music.

You can add a short, fast run every now and then. This would be close to your max. You can't really speak anymore then

And intermediate runs complete the triplets. They are inbetween these two.

As others have said, heart rate maximums don't necessarily fit the formula of 220-age. I am in my 60s and my HR will be in the 170s on a moderate paced hilly run. I average in the 160s. It's in the 180s if I push myself. Run by perceived effort. If it feels easy, so you can speak in whole sentences, then you're running at the right effort. If you are gasping for breath, slow down.

Yes, do mention it to your physician and see if s/he wants to refer you for testing. I did when no machine could seem to calculate my heartbeat rate accurately -- turns out I had a minor arrhythmia that's fixed with a pill -- but they did, among other things, a stress test. I like to call it my very expensive clean bill of health -- thank goodness I had good insurance.

Agreeing with others here (that 220-age is way wrong for lots of people; that rate of perceived exertion is useful for unusual cases (or anyone, really); and that a high HR without other negative symptoms isn't likely an urgent problem (but is worth asking your doctor about, when you see her/him).

Wanting to add:

* Having a higher heart rate doesn't mean you're burning more calories than someone the same size, doing the same workout, who happens to have a lower heart rate. The work (in pretty much the physics sense of work) determines the energy requirement, the energy requirement is the calorie burn, and heart rate changes only approximately correlate with workload changes in a single individual (and even then it'll change with longer term changes in fitness level). Lots of things drive heart rate changes (heat, stress, dehydration, etc.), pretty much only one of which (oxygen demand) correlates with calorie burn. For most people, despite these issues, the estimates are still potentially close enough to be useful.

* If you suspect you have an unusual heart rate range, but want to be able to use heart rate or similar metrics for training purposes, you might want to consider sports-related testing at a university lab, at some future time. I'd wait until good base fitness is in place, personally, then think about it . . . but some highly-motivated people with spare $$$ like having a baseline for some of the data.

* If you have a statistically unusual heart rate range, it inceases the chances that exercise calorie estimates from heart-rate-based devices will be incorrect. Cross-check with other (non-HR) sources as a reasonableness test.

* Once you've developed reasonable base fitness and endurance, you could consider running some kind of heart-rate max self test. There are various submaximal effort tests for approximating a HRmax estimate, so it isn't necessarily all about reaching max. I don't have a specific one to proposed (used a coach-run rowing machine max test myself), but use a search engine to find one from a university or sports-med practice or something like that.

Ditto's to above from tappae.

Even if you have a Honda heart as far as high HRmax and runs higher than average for most activities - that still sounds a bit high.
Not dangerous, just makes me think it's running that high because you have a poor aerobic base.

Ditto's to Ann thoughts too.
Several places here run the VO2max tests, sometimes along with RMR test (I just realized I don't hear many posts about that anymore) first.

And OP - don't worry about the formula - for women it's pretty big bell - you have more chances of being outside the 10 bpm calculated than within.