Is this dangerous to run at 105% of max heart rate?

SlowFatMaster wrote:

What about all the coaches and motivational speakers who ask that we give 110%? How can they all be wrong?

(sarcasm alert)

Depends if you're ready to take the Bull by the horns n go the extra mile, take no prisoners, give it all ya got n then some?

Rabio wrote:

Today I did a hard 7km for a tempo effort and my garmin watch showed to me that I was at 105% of max heart rate for several minutes at the end.

Normally my max heart rate is 190 but I was above 200 for several minutes.

I wanted to know if this is dangerous to run above your maximum and what are the risks?

How did you determine your HRmax is 190?

Darby wrote:

It's amazing that people on this board lack understanding of rather basic physiology.

There's a node in the heart that acts like a pacemaker for your heart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinoatrial_node

Your true max heart rate is defined by this organ, how often can it generate electric impulses.

It differs a lot in different people. It's genetic.

Your ability to drive this organ to its max might be limited, but there's no "running MHR", "cycling MHR" and "sleeping MHR". There's one single genetically defined and age affected MHR, some activities might recruit enough muscle mass to reach it, some not. Hard uphill running usually gets you close enough, if you're fresh.

The SA node is the pacemaker, but the nervous system can also "reset" it as we see when people do endurance training and resting HR lowers (along with HR at a given intensity).

I would look the mode of activity in a more practical way in that maximal HR achieved in running may well differ than one can achieve in cycling or swimming. In triathletes I have tested in all three modes, running maxhr is pretty much always the highest, cycling is slightly lower and swimming (in large part because you are prone) was often considerably lower than the other two. So yes, one is higher, but in terms of practical approach to training the mode specific one is necessary.

Too much RunnersWorld on here anymore

Try this;

Start off at 0% of max HR and work up to 100%

If you don't feel onset of heart attack ramp it up to 160% of max HR

Runningart2004 wrote:

Spinal Tap would be proud.

Alan

Yeah man, OP totally got his HR to 11.

Another Coach wrote:

CopperRunner wrote:

This has to be a troll.

Reminds me of people that say they ran a 5 mile tempo at 5K pace.

Yo OP, do you realize that you can't have a HR higher than max HR, by definition?

If you wanna train according to HR zones, you gotta do a proper max HR test first. Otherwise, man, it's just nonsense.

According to a simplistic formula for untrained individuals, your max HR is 220 minus your age. Last year (December 2019) I was 60, so my predicted max was 160, yet I ran the marathon (CIM) with an average of 158 according to my Garmin. But there's no way I was at 99 percent for 3 hours.

My real max is probably about 175. I get a 6-second count of 17 after running a hard sprint or uphill.

If you are older and fit you can't really use 220 minus your age or it will give you some stupid low number relative to your real max. I'm in the same boat - I'm 60 (going on 61) with an actual max of about 185 and the formula would say it should be 160. If you were unfit the formula is probably a good starting point but for people like us it is useless. If I remember correctly the workout which is supposed to give you your max HR is 3 x 800M as hard as possible with a short rest between

I know about it. Not relevant, since it will not somehow override your max.

Darby wrote:

yes, no, maybe wrote:

If you re gonna lecture people about "rather basic physiology" then you should learn a bit more about the variables that affect heart rate. Hydration status and sodium retention/depletion alone will alter the functional range which is relevant to the weather conditions we train and race in.

And then there are the hematological factors, which could fill a whole thread.

I know about it. Not relevant, since it will not somehow override your max.

You obviously don't understand the variables of which there are many.

I can give at least what I consider an interesting development of "max HR". I have always have had a pretty steady HR also up to 2 years ago. I came back to training after a year off and hit the same heartrates as before. Then in august that year I started using a rowing machine 3 times a week. Not more than 3x10min a week. During august I noticed I had a hard time hitting the expected HR when doing intervals. I thought I was out of shape and could not push hard enough, but then i september I copied some workouts from 5 years ago and what was clear was that I had somehow reduced my estimated max heart rate by approx 10 strokes. The effort was the same, the times/paces equal. What had happened? Well, there is evidence rowing can acutely increase the stroke volume of the heart and since the heart is asked to deliver a certain blood volume, it could then deliver the same volume of blood with fewer strokes. Well for me the change has never gone back. I have the very same performance or better than 5-10 years ago since I am better trained, but the HR is consistently 8-9-10 stroke lower than before.

I do not think my node cannot cope with the rate demand, I just think my heart got and stay bigger so the heart can beat less often.

I think this is a sign that it is a lot of different aspects controlling the HR and max HR.

Rabio wrote:

Today I did a hard 7km for a tempo effort and my garmin watch showed to me that I was at 105% of max heart rate for several minutes at the end.

Normally my max heart rate is 190 but I was above 200 for several minutes.

I wanted to know if this is dangerous to run above your maximum and what are the risks?

Are you wearing a chest strap? Please answer that question. Wrist HRMs are notoriously inconsistent, especially at faster paces.

If you were wearing a chest strap, your HR max is probably close to whatever the highest intermittent reading recorded in that run... say, 205 for example.

If you were running tempo at/near HR max, you were doing it wrong. You were racing the workout. You wasted the effort... not completely, but once you go anaerobic, you're no longer primarily training your aerobic system.

The problem with finding HR max that you then have to determine training zones, which are too wide to optimize your tempo (lactate threshold) workouts.

A better method is to use the Joe Friel method to determine your LTHR and your training zones. Friel has several methods of determining LTHR. This is one way shown below.

Yes, there's a lot of factors controlling the HR. The list is too long, but for our purposes we can focus on heart stroke volume, blood volume/thickness (that's dehydration, too), blood distribution dynamics and adrenaline stimulation (ever noticed higher BPM in/before a race?)

Yes, your heart have been improved and you don't NEED to hit your max anymore.

No, your node have not changed much. Your true max hr is still about the same. It might have lost a beat or two due to the aging process.

One caveat here: we are talking about normal healthy people. It is quite possible for the "node" to malfunction or even to stop working. In fact, I had a problem with this node diagnosed in my youth when it was shown to have "migrated", whatever that meant, resulting in arrythmia. There's a fallback mechanism built-in in the heart where other group of cells takes the role of heart's pacemaker or you could stimulate it externally (electronic pacemaker, etc) and achieve a higher max. Theoretic limit in this case is about 300bpm and there were even cases of higher than 400 in real life.

Think of it like a modern CPU which use a frequency generator. You generally don't run it at full frequency, unless the load requires it. And you can overclock it, sure, but that's another story.

You need to define tempo for yourself. There is limited benefit in running all-out in practice. You may improve for 6-8 weeks then things will turn for the worst.

Tempos are effective, if they are tempos.

Good luck!