# HR changes over the years



## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

We all know max HR decreases with age. I found my training journal from 1989 where my notes from a self-administered Conconi test says I reached 190-195bpm. Not sure if that was measured with a HR monitor or whether I was doing my best checking my own pulse. I'm sure that wasn't outright max, either, but there's no way I'm sniffing 190 nowadays.

This is just one data point, maybe a little sus since I'm not sure what kind of monitor I may have had back then. I had a rather clunky wired HR monitor for a bit back then, but usually ran without HR, just a little Avocet bike computer. Anyone else have data from back when they were young racers?


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## Scott241 (9 mo ago)

back when I raced around 2003-2006 I'd see 211 max hr maybe higher I 'd need to look in my training logs. Now I think maybe I've seen 189 max hr and that was a few years ago.


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## Crankout (Jun 16, 2010)

Dunnigan said:


> We all know max HR decreases with age. I found my training journal from 1989 where my notes from a self-administered Conconi test says I reached 190-195bpm. Not sure if that was measured with a HR monitor or whether I was doing my best checking my own pulse. I'm sure that wasn't outright max, either, but there's no way I'm sniffing 190 nowadays.
> 
> This is just one data point, maybe a little sus since I'm not sure what kind of monitor I may have had back then. I had a rather clunky wired HR monitor for a bit back then, but usually ran without HR, just a little Avocet bike computer. Anyone else have data from back when they were young racers?


Pretty sure I was hitting the 190's some 20 + years ago.


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## Daydreamer (Aug 27, 2018)

Other than one hill climb race in 2009 at age 44 I never raced. However, I did track my heart rate and used it for training purposes. I didn't start riding/running until I was 30. From 33-44 my old logs show that my max was 185-186. At that level I was starting to get lightheaded. Now at 57 I don't track my heart rate as often and I don't train quite as hard as I did back then. This summer my Max HR has been 174-175. I think I could go higher as I've not been pushing until I felt like throwing up or getting lightheaded. I recorded one run last year on the treadmill where I pushed it to 178.

All my data is with a chest strap.


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## Dunnigan (9 mo ago)

Scott241 said:


> back when I raced around 2003-2006 I'd see 211 max hr maybe higher I 'd need to look in my training logs. Now I think maybe I've seen 189 max hr and that was a few years ago.


Humming bird!


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## rockcrusher (Aug 28, 2003)

Back in the 90's I got a wrist mounted HRM with the chest strap and I regularly got to +200 mountain biking in Arizona. Then in the late nineties I got a garmin forerunner and was able to sync it to the heart rate strap and I was still getting to 200+ (I was in my 20's through thirties. I stopped using heart rate for ages, then started running in my forties and my heart rate max that I would hit would be 180's at full effort. Now as I ease into my fifties my Peloton has me hitting 160's at a max HIIT effort and similarly my Lezyne bike computer. The old engine just doesn't run as hard. 

I do wonder as I add more training in after a season ending hip injury this spring if the max rate will go up again. What is crazy is my easy heart rate is around 110bpm which is probably what I had back in the 90 and aughts, maybe it was 10bpm less, but the max has dropped significantly. I don't feel necessarily slower, I have a consistent bike commute where I can compare best time from 7 years ago on the same route as I do now and my times are variable within a few minutes, which a lot of that depends on traffic lights more than anything.


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## jimPacNW (Feb 26, 2013)

I could hit 205-210 and recover when I was 24/25, 30 years later I get above 182 and I've got about 30 seconds until fade, - at probably not a whole lot lower power.


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## Cary (Dec 29, 2003)

My max has always been at the far end of the bell curve. 49 and is 185-186. 10 years ago was about 195. I can ride for hours at 150-160.


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## Bikeworks (Sep 10, 2020)

Cary said:


> My max has always been at the far end of the bell curve. 49 and is 185-186. 10 years ago was about 195. I can ride for hours at 150-160.


Same, diesel engine here at 53. My max is a bit lower than yours, around 183, but that's really end of the road for me.


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## Hurricane Jeff (Jan 1, 2006)

In my late 20's, early 30's, my max was about 210. I heard of a method of going as hard as you could and just when you think you can't go harder, go harder. That was the method I used back then. I used to be able to keep it in the 170's-180's seemingly forever if I needed.
Now at 60, I really have no clue what my max is, but have seen 170+ once or twice. Typically my average HR on a good ride in around 135 with a max of 160. My low HR still goes into the mid thirties at times.


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## goofyarcher (Jul 12, 2020)

After a few Heart Attacks back to back in a week and a pacemaker, a bit of caution is needed
Im 61, My crusing / XC is about 135 HR which is pretty easy to hold for a couple hours. Hard climbs, my max is 155 to 160,
My cardiologist said 155 should be my max.
Honestly, anything above 160 causes pain in my back, and shoulders, It feels like I'm getting stabled in the back, and the pain lingers for quite some time, I try to avoid high rates. had to use nitro a few times, With that said I can outride most of the folks I know.


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## MTB_Underdog (Jul 8, 2020)

I don't normally race but I did a local short track series last February. 51 years old, my avg HR was 171 and max was 180. I've since given my Garmin HR strap to my 14 year old son. He did a crit Saturday, avg was 187 for the 30 minute race, and a max of 204.


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## roadczar (Jun 17, 2007)

At 58 with couple of heart attacks... I can only sustain mid 140's now. Have to take a break if I hit 160.


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## rockcrusher (Aug 28, 2003)

as another data point i have been doing power zone training on my Peloton and for a lot of the endurance rides, when i ride in a zone three (avg 222kj of power) any duration over 5 minutes I will rapidly escalate my HR towards my max by age. However when I a more standard power zone/HIIT type training I spend less time near my max HR for sure. 

At this point in my life it seems that hr goes up higher during sustained intensity then peak spiking intensity followed by recovery areas.


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## cxfahrer (Jun 20, 2008)

I think it is not worth the pain (and risk) anymore. I liked it getting to hrmax in a race and get near black out when I was 30 something, but when becoming 60 there was really no sense in doing it. Endurance training won't help when aging. 
My last race was 5yrs ago (at 58 then), no senior class, and it was so stupid to hit this hr rate wall when just accelerating on a sprint segment, and shortly after that the next rider ringing his bell (enduro, 30sec gaps).

I take beta blocker and flecainid because of LAF, which keep my heart rate down anyway.


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## nOOky (May 13, 2008)

In my late 20's racing road and mountain bike my RHR was about 50 BPM and I did the treadmill test when I was 29 and hit 181 BPM. I'm not normal in that I have had 3 ablations for a-fib, however after those my RHR went up to around 58 BPM and stayed there for years, it did not seem to affect my max. Today at 54 my RHR is around 50 again, my max 170, about 5% of my heart muscle is scar tissue from the 3 ablations, so I was told it might stay higher from that. I feel that I have better aerobic endurance right now, but worse anaerobic fitness as I have become an ultramarathon runner instead of a short 2-3 bike racer.


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## oldcolonial (Aug 28, 2018)

I'll add some data to the mix. In 28 years of looking at my max, it has dropped about 12 bpm from 207 to 195. I am 59, almost 60 now, resting heart rate also seems to have dropped from just south of 60 typically to just north of 50. The initial max was done by a researcher. Numbers from 10 years ago suggest a max right around 200 and today are based on the stats that I see coming off of my Garmin chest strap HRM. Over these same years, my easy conversational pace has gone from 150-160bpm to 142-150bpm. 160 bpm really feels like work, where it used to be an easy pace. What feels like my lactate threshold workout pace has gone from being around 195-200 to being around 183-188 so it all seems to correlate nicely with the shift in resting and max. Of course, all of this work is happening at a much lower level of output. The maxes and LT numbers are based on running tests.


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## edubfromktown (Sep 7, 2010)

I did not monitor my HR until somewhat recently.

Started when the 1st Wahoo Blue chest strap came out 
Some of my friends are like jackrabbits in high 1's and low 2's and are surprised by my much lower max and average HR during all day or shorter high intensity rides with them.

Sent from my KB2005 using Tapatalk


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