Cycling UK Forum

I've had a Garmin for ages but never bought it with the heart monitor. Yesterday one arrived in the post and I linked it to my Garmin Edge - great!
I've been reading up on training with a monitor but different sites give different advice and different formula for max heart rate for a given age. Some sites suggest ways to find your max rate which sounds like it might be a bit painful . I have a resting rate of 48bpm which means I'm either an athlete or ill.

What I want is advice from someone who uses one (rather than someone who has never used one) please. So any links to easily understandable ways to use one would be much appreciated thanks.

Hi,
Like you say an accurate test is painful and perhaps if you were made to drop off the back off a chain gang and they then reduced their speed to yours with a gap of say 100 mtrs and then you were beaten with a stick to get back on that would be accurate also

Your resting HR says you are quite fit.
A turbo would help you as you can put yourself near max after 1/2 an hour of pain, this would give you a ball park figure.

If you never used a HR monitor before then its probably going to be suck it and see what it brings up.
I am 56 and 30 years ago my max was above 200 as fast as I could count.
But now I have guessed at 185 as I have seen this a few times in three years once on the turbo (IIRC 186/7) and once chasing down a roadie up haytor on my 23 kg skip trainer.I caught him to only to be pipped at the line (182).

Probably its realistic to say max would be nearer 190, if I can get to just under that self driven on the turbo.

Very difficult to drive yourself above an average "80 % of max HR" for more than say 2.5 to 3 hours, for me any way.
And turbo is above say average "90 % of max HR" for an hour for me.
Awake HR for me is 45 - 52 in the day.

So if you were doing 100 miles a week at average of 80 % max HR.
You should be able to get above average of 90% max HR, but not every run.

Your age means nothing as you are a cyclist so you might need to add on 20 -25 BPM to what the machine says you max should be.

A rough guide to max heart rate is 220 - your age in years. I had a check up a couple of years ago following a suspected heart attack. The treadmill test was a good measure of the accuracy of the formulae for me. Not everyone fits this scenario though. The doc told me a good way to measure your max heart rate was to walk briskly up a steep hill as fast as you can without breaking into a run and measure your heart rate. Easier than sprinting up a climb on the bike.

i wouldn't recommend using any formulae. my wife is 6 months younger than me, her max hr is 203 bpm. mine is 191. my brother is 4 years younger than me and his is 191 also. my daughter is 18 years younger than me and hers is the same as my wife's. the formulae won't do that so several family members max hr would be wildly wrong.

to find ours i set the bikes on a turbo, warm up well for 10 mins. then start increasing speed until you're working hard over another 10 mins, then sprint for 30 secs all out, rest 30 sprint 30. repeat until you collapse. and i mean literally collapse. if you can talk and make sense you've not gone hard enough. you should be able to only concentrate on breathing, the spots should be dancing before your eyes and snot and dribble leaking down your chin.

i tried to set up my bro-in-law for a hrm but he wouldn't put the effort in. i'd tell him to go harder and he was telling me 'i'm going as hard as i can!' the fact he could talk at all was evidence he wasn't working.

a turbo is recommended as it's harder to fall off, but not impossible.

it hurts, but it's meant to.

220 Minus age is totally unreliable. You really need to do a ramp test or ride up a long hill. If you sprint the last 200 yards of the climb you should see your max heart rate as you crest the hill. Or just monitor yor rides and see what your max is from general riding. All 3 methods likely to involve some pain on your part.

Ok, once you've found what you think is your max heart rate what next

Once you have found your maximum HR then the unit will accurately show you your % effort or Zone. Some people use zones for their HR training - google training with HR zones and you'll see. I use my HR % as a measure of how hard I'm trying, good for long rides where you want to pace yourself, for me if I stick below 80% and as long as I get the nutrition right, I can go all day.

It's a pacing tool. Either to keep your HR below a certain level to ensure you don't go too hard over long distance. Or over the likes of a short distance TT to be sure you actually are putting in your max effort.

I generally use it as reassurance that I am pretty much on my limit when climbing that if my HR is already 178 then trying to push harder is going to be counter productive.

The real advantage in training with these is using them to limit your exertion. The expert on this stuff is Dr.Phil Maffetone. Look him up.
I'm 65. My max HR is 173 which I hit a couple of times in a triatholon relay last year. Extremely strenuous. When I was in my forties it was 180 or so.
You should train WAY below this for endurance. For me, according to Maffetone's complicated formula that's at about 116. Too slow? No, it really works.

Hi,

Using Zones is probably best for training, opposed to a lesure ride or even an event say racing, where leisure is comfort and racing is flat out up to say three hours, after that it is endurance.

Race under one hour you will struggle for 30 mins to get up high. and you will find some days impossible to get above 75 %.
That why pro's are constantly on the turbo when they are not racing, before to warm up to max efficiency level / because team manager might well want them to push off fast from the off
After racing to get lactic out of the muscles.

I never warm up because the thought of riding means over 100 before I leave home and 50 mtrs up the road above 140, plus its just training and long rides don't require max efficiency from the off.

Aerobic in theory is sustainable indefinitely
Anaerobic above 80% is finite and you will tire, muscles ache and will eventually grind to a halt.
Max effort is only sustainable for seconds, 2.5 times your max sustainable for one hour watts.

If your real keen then you can train at 80 - 90 % then do short intervals even harder and repeat etc.

On my 12 -24 hour rides I can maintain above 70% which ring's true it is aerobic.

Without a HR monitor you will never know if you are effectively training or how hard is hard.
Endurance at high effort levels will need fitness, fitness is also good recovery = how soon next ride.

If you cant recover then you are unfit and cant train effectively.

But you need that guide otherwise you might get to a point where fitness will not change.

Increasing your fitness means better oxygen uptake VO2 max and endurance then becomes very easy without tiredness and pain.
This I.M.O. is most effectively done by high exertion training and less time.
Long miles takes a long time and if not hard enough you might never see results.
http://blog.digifit.com/2013/05/resting-heart-rat/

So, presumably as you age you would need to reset your max heart rate?

Dave W wrote:I've had a Garmin for ages but never bought it with the heart monitor. Yesterday one arrived in the post and I linked it to my Garmin Edge - great!
I've been reading up on training with a monitor but different sites give different advice and different formula for max heart rate for a given age. Some sites suggest ways to find your max rate which sounds like it might be a bit painful . I have a resting rate of 48bpm which means I'm either an athlete or ill.

What I want is advice from someone who uses one (rather than someone who has never used one) please. So any links to easily understandable ways to use one would be much appreciated thanks.

I don't want to denegrate the efforts of those who responded but most of the posts relate to personal experiences which with repect, aren't necessarliy going to be any help to you. I don't think anyone actually properly read your post.

The only info you give is that your resting HR is 48 but crucially you don't give your age, weight , what type of riding you do etc etc As you say you might be an athlete or you might be ill - no way of knowing from your post.

If I were you I would either post up the above info or go and see someone in person who knows this field. BTW I do use a HRM but I don't think I could give you any meaningful info at this stage.

morzov wrote:

Dave W wrote:I've had a Garmin for ages but never bought it with the heart monitor. Yesterday one arrived in the post and I linked it to my Garmin Edge - great!
I've been reading up on training with a monitor but different sites give different advice and different formula for max heart rate for a given age. Some sites suggest ways to find your max rate which sounds like it might be a bit painful . I have a resting rate of 48bpm which means I'm either an athlete or ill.

What I want is advice from someone who uses one (rather than someone who has never used one) please. So any links to easily understandable ways to use one would be much appreciated thanks.

I don't want to denegrate the efforts of those who responded but most of the posts relate to personal experiences which with repect, aren't necessarliy going to be any help to you. I don't think anyone actually properly read your post.

The only info you give is that your resting HR is 48 but crucially you don't give your age, weight , what type of riding you do etc etc As you say you might be an athlete or you might be ill - no way of knowing from your post.

If I were you I would either post up the above info or go and see someone in person who knows this field. BTW I do use a HRM but I don't think I could give you any meaningful info at this stage.

don't need to know all his details, he asked how to use find and use max hr. knowing his age, weight etc wouldn't have changed my post.

When I first got a HRM we did not really do max HR's what i did discover is that i rode time trials flat out at 160-170 bpm, if i was not at the level for shorter distances i was not riding as hard as i could... 25 years on and i still ride TT's at around that HR.

However remember other factors do affect your HR, fatigue and temperature. If you are tired your HR won't respond the same.. it is a muscle it also gets tired.
Cold and heat will speed or slow down your HR, heat:- it has to beat faster to circulate the blood to the extremities for cooling.

If I was trying to find max HR consider doing a form of ramp test: Warm up on a turbo, then 2 mins at comfortable pace, lift the pace so you raise your HR by 10 every 2 mins until you literally cannot complete... you might want someone to stand by to record where you get to as 'eyeballs' out you might not register it....

Thanks for the replies so far. I don't race or compete. I'm just curious about the whole theory of heart rate monitors. I go to spin classes too and what interests me is knowing how much effort is required to improve or at least maintain fitness. For example I try and spin closer to my maximum effort during a class (evident by the lake of sweat under my bike) than anyone else it seems, whereas many women do double classes or jump straight off for a gym workout.
I'd be gutted to find all my effort was unessesary - which it might be.
Likewise I'm very interested to know how to conserve energy/effort on longer rides. At present It's quite possible I ride too hard.