# Maximum Heart Rate for Older Riders



## CarbineSL (Jul 16, 2013)

When using my Garmin GPS or my Kinetics trainer, the software wants to know my minimum and maximum heart rate to estimate time in the different heart rate zones. There's no problem measuring resting heart rate, it's easy to do with a blood pressure monitor. My resting pulse is 45-46 BPM. A variety of websites I've visited give different ways to calculate max HR. However, according to one website I visited, for a 60 YO, max heart rate should be 167, but on my trail rides, my Garmin and HR monitor has recorded 165-168 quite regularly, usually on downhill sections. I'm quite sure my heart is not maxed out. Short of going to a sports clinic and getting on a bike or treadmill, is there a reasonably accurate way to estimate max HR? Is anyone able to recommend a good source of information?


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## p08757 (Mar 15, 2012)

CarbineSL said:


> When using my Garmin GPS or my Kinetics trainer, the software wants to know my minimum and maximum heart rate to estimate time in the different heart rate zones. There's no problem measuring resting heart rate, it's easy to do with a blood pressure monitor. My resting pulse is 45-46 BPM. A variety of websites I've visited give different ways to calculate max HR. However, according to one website I visited, for a 60 YO, max heart rate should be 167, but on my trail rides, my Garmin and HR monitor has recorded 165-168 quite regularly, usually on downhill sections. I'm quite sure my heart is not maxed out. Short of going to a sports clinic and getting on a bike or treadmill, is there a reasonably accurate way to estimate max HR? Is anyone able to recommend a good source of information?


Maximum and minimum HRs can vary from person to person of the same age. Most formulas should be used as a guideline and can and do change from day to day.

I calculate my max HR by looking at my most recent intense workouts and seeing what I spike at. This should get you close.

I'm turning 50 in a few months, and my max HR (as measured by my most recent extreme workout) is around 206.

Please also note your numbers can go up or down based upon training schedule, your recent health and other factors.

I use my HR monitor as a general guide to let me know how intense my workouts are. I don't really care or get hung up on what my actual max/min numbers are since they vary from week to week.

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## Bill88 (Oct 24, 2011)

The medical guideline - max predicted is 220 minus your age. Training zones are then a percentage of max predicted. Obviously varies from person to person and measuring devices vary in accuracy.


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## SkiEd (Nov 4, 2014)

As stated maximum HR is variable from person to person depending on a number of physiological factors including size of heart (think pump size). Training may move your max HR up slightly but there is usually no major change to true maximum HR. Maximum HR does decline as you age typically 1-2 beats / year over about 45. Vo2 max, the point at which O2 processing is maxed (lungs, heart, circulatory) is a butter training threshold metric. The best way to determine Vo2 max is with a ergonomic stress test that actually takes you to max HR. Make sure your Doc is ok with this before you try one. There are many online resources that describe how to find Vo2 max using either a power meter or a HR monitor.


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## JohnnyVV (Feb 28, 2015)

Individuals vary widely so the formulas don't work for everyone. You can't find your own without hitting it. You don't have to do a stress test at the doctor's, but you do have to push yourself. If you're not comfortable doing that, just go by the formula or bump it up by 5 BPM for zone recording purposes if you know you've got more left. Your zones being off a few BPM doesn't matter. They're fairly arbitrary divisions to start with.

If you do measure your own, obviously don't go until you collapse and don't do it on a hot or humid day. I've never set out to hit my max; I think a more useful number comes from just riding. 

And, by the way, don't discount DH numbers as inherently low. I hit my max DH as often as up. Uphill, I'm very conscious of my energy use. Downhill, I'm just adding speed wherever I can and having too much fun to notice how gassed I am until the bottom.


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## Eric Malcolm (Dec 18, 2011)

I wonder if the part of the concern raised relates to doing the physical effort pre-DH, then finding while in the static rest DH, the heart races when you would think it should drop. 

I have found when doing intervals, that under load the heart holds firm, but if I don't reduce effort slowly, an abrupt halt to load will bump the HR up before it begins to settle back down. I think this is normal for our age group.

Eric


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## Sinker (Feb 3, 2007)

As others have said, it's personal... like shoe size. I think the formula for MAX HR I believe are only applicable as an average for a population. Like weight; for example you've got three guys that weight 170, 175 and 210lbs. The average weight is 185, but none of the three actually weigh 185.


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## smilinsteve (Jul 21, 2009)

I have had my max heart rate determined by a treadmill test. It's just pushing yourself to a max effort. I regularly exert as much effort during a ride as I have on a treadmill. If you wear a HR monitor while riding your max heart rate is probably pretty close to the max you have observed on your monitor. 

To the OP, I think its odd that you see your highest HR on downhills. For me its usually a short but very steep uphill section. Make it technical because that means you need power to get over stuff and can't do it slowly. In that type of situation you can probably hit max in under a minute.


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## SWriverstone (Sep 3, 2009)

If I have time I'll dig around a bit online. I seem to recall reading about a more accurate formula for max heartrate than the "220 minus age" maxim, which I think has been debunked resoundingly over the years. (Or at least it seems not to be accurate at all for reasonably fit, active people. Maybe it was designed for couch potatoes?)

I know at age 53, my heartrate routinely gets up in the 190 range on climbs.

I should add that I've never had nor worn a heartrate monitor. I've just never been serious enough about training to want one. I'm pretty good at using my watch or GPS to do the 6- or 10-second count and multiplying—and that's accurate enough for me. (Along with the "can you talk comfortably versus only sputter a few syllables" technique.)

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't ride any differently if I wore a monitor all the time. I might know more about what my heart is doing, but it wouldn't make me climb any faster. 

Scott


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## Wherewolf (Jan 17, 2004)

*Try this site*

Try this site, it lists most of the ways to determine it and has a calculator that does all of them for you. However max HR varies considerably between individuals. Until about two years ago mine was way above average, but it changed so dramatically I saw a cardiologist. The 220 - age works pretty well for me now.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

220 minus age is for under 40 years of age. Over forty use 208 - 70% age.
Figuring the 'zones' gets a bit more involved. From the max above subtract your resting HR rate. Take the percentage of the result and add your resting HR. Easier to do in a spreadsheet, as your fitness improves the resting HR changes, so you may have to recalculate every few weeks.


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## The Tedinator (Sep 4, 2012)

If you have a indoor trainer and a HR monitor, you could try this:

Spin for 10 minutes, slowly raising your HR. Then start speeding up and get your HR up in 5 BPM increments. When you can no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance without difficulty, you are pretty close to 80% of your MHR.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

The Tedinator said:


> If you have a indoor trainer and a HR monitor, you could try this:
> 
> Spin for 10 minutes, slowly raising your HR. Then start speeding up and get your HR up in 5 BPM increments. When you can no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance without difficulty, you are pretty close to 80% of your MHR.


That is basically the sing-talk test. Exercise at an intensity you can talk but not sing. For most people that is a quick easy test for optimum intensity.


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## PlutonicPlague (Jan 19, 2014)

The Tedinator said:


> If you have a indoor trainer and a HR monitor, you could try this:
> 
> Spin for 10 minutes, slowly raising your HR. Then start speeding up and get your HR up in 5 BPM increments. When you can no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance without difficulty, you are pretty close to 80% of your MHR.


Dang! I'm just sitting here in a chair typing, and I cannot recite the Pledge of Allegiance without difficulty, but my heart rate is still at my normal resting rate (in the mid/upper 60s), and I have no trouble singing!


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## PlutonicPlague (Jan 19, 2014)

I was diagnosed as having "A-Fib with rapid ventricular response." I don't have a heart rate monitor or a smart-phone with an app. I just monitor my heart rate by feel. 
When I'm climbing a hill, I can feel my heart rate pick up, and when my breathing becomes overly labored (as if I'm not taking up and delivering enough O2), I either just slow down or I get off and push my bike the rest of the way up the steep.
I never let it get to the point where my atrium starts fibrillating. So far, I've pulled this off for the last eleven months with no problems.
I suppose that 208 - (.7 x65) = 162.5 would be my max.
My heartbeat is still arrhythmic, but I'm slowly recovering from the depths of my heart failure, and the ol' pump is now lub-dubbin' along at 85%+ of full throttle, which is better than the 10% low (nearly dead) it hit back in June 2014.:thumbsup:


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## LyNx (Oct 26, 2004)

I don't seem to get the problem here, you have a HRM, ride your bike up a steep hill, give max effort, check what it says your max HR was, simple as that. If you're seeing 165-160 bpm on DH sections you've got something weird going on IMHO, your HR should not be that high unless you're fanning out your hardest gear and even then :skep:


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## JohnnyVV (Feb 28, 2015)

LyNx said:


> If you're seeing 165-160 bpm on DH sections you've got something weird going on IMHO, your HR should not be that high unless you're fanning out your hardest gear and even then :skep:


For me, 160 isn't that uncommon as a HR average for a high-paced two hour ride. My max is 194 and resting is 48. If you start a downhill with an elevated HR from the climb and if you pedal hard anywhere it's flat or straight, getting your heart rate up near the max isn't really unusual. Not everyone uses the descent for recovery.

Your notion that 160-165 is notably high points to just how different heart rates at a given effort can be, though. I read recently about a study that looked at rowers. They found a guy at 165 BPM and a guy at 220 BPM who were producing similar power and who could sustain the output for similar periods of time. Their bodies just went about it differently.


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## rustie (Apr 21, 2010)

*Aging Heart Rate*

My exercise-physiology friends have convinced me to take aging seriously: a strong heart can still pump the blood at pressures that aging vessels may no longer be able to accommodate......resulting in micro strokes, or worse.
Not a good time to be too macho or nostalgic about youthful glory!
However, theres no need to turn into a blimp or slug, just stop short of going anaerobic or getting too close to a max cardiac output. Steep technical hills, especially with rock bumps to power over, will test this resolve.
I just stay away from becoming too breathless.
If someone wanted to maintain a more sophisticated approach they would be well advised to do it under the guidance of medical and training specialists. After about age 30 labs will no longer do a max vo2 test (to collapse) and after about age 50 any kind of serious treadmill testing becomes pretty tricky. Individual variations and genetic propensities assume greater significance and it can all go south quite rapidly.
Standard formulae (220 - age) loose their statistical validity and it all becomes more of an art form.
But exciting things can still be achieved! I haven't had a heart conniption yet but fairly regular trips to surgery reassure me that I am still exploring my limits at age 75.



JohnnyVV said:


> For me, 160 isn't that uncommon as a HR average for a high-paced two hour ride. My max is 194 and resting is 48. If you start a downhill with an elevated HR from the climb and if you pedal hard anywhere it's flat or straight, getting your heart rate up near the max isn't really unusual. Not everyone uses the descent for recovery.
> 
> Your notion that 160-165 is notably high points to just how different heart rates at a given effort can be, though. I read recently about a study that looked at rowers. They found a guy at 165 BPM and a guy at 220 BPM who were producing similar power and who could sustain the output for similar periods of time. Their bodies just went about it differently.


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## MSU Alum (Aug 8, 2009)

I'm 63. Last year I got a stress echocardiogram. My max was 197. Everyone is different, formulae don't work.


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## gpeden (Nov 17, 2014)

MSU, wow that's interesting. I'm almost 64 and regularly match exceed my calculated max HR and I know I'm not near the level of "keep going, even after you feel your going to die" levels of exertion that they use in those tests.

Glen


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