I found this useful post using the search.
Yessiree Bob wrote:
I have a question for the group.
I'm 2 months shy of my 62nd birthday, and on Sunday, ran a 5k in 19:37, closing with a 6:00 last mile. My heart monitor recorded a gradual buildup to a max HR of 178 BPM during the final stretch.
Using the 220 - age formula gives me a max HR of 158, and none of the other iterations are above 165 so I'm wondering if this is a sign of fitness and/or I'm younger than my chronological age; or is it something to potentially be concerned about?
Background: I'm a former elite, been running since 1970. Currently running 20 - 25 miles on 4 days a week, generally consisting of a 90 minute trail run, an 8 mile progression averaging 7:30s, and two easy runs of 3 - 6 miles.
First off, congrats on the 19:30 5K at 62, good running! That is what I want to do, but have a long hard road ahead.
I have been researching Max HR a lot. Here is what I have come up with:
1) Max HR has zero correlation with potential as a distance runner. Meaning if you are an athlete in your prime years say 18-38, whatever you Max is, tells you nothing about performance potential. There have been world class runners with very high and very low Max HRs.
2) Comparing Max HR between 2 different runners tells you nothing about who will be faster or who has more potential.
3) As you age, your Max HR will decline.
4) Will your Max HR decline slower if you continue to train at a high level? Probably and it makes sense, but unfortunately no studies out there covering the subject, not a lot of researchers out there interested in old endurance athletes.
5) Resting Heart rate will decline as fitness improves at any age. It will rise if fitness deteriorates.
6) Again, comparing one athlete's RHR with another's will not tell you who is faster, but with large pools of athletes, most of the fastest athletes, will have a lower RHR than most of the slower athletes, but exceptions scattered in each pool.
7) If your individual Max HR is significantly lower than it used to be, you likely have less potential than you used to have.
8) Can one improve their Max HR via training? This is the million dollar question. Unfortunately there is no answer, with no definitive studies on the subject. Most "experts" will say no, you cannot improve it, it is fixed (until aging causes it to go lower). In fact, a couple of studies I read indirectly showed that not only can you not improve it, but it may actually decline a few beats as your fitness improves, but see 9 below.
9) The fitter you become, more than one study showed the opposite of what you would expect. It showed out of shape people taking a Max HR test actually are able to achieve their Max HR easier than a highly trained athlete can. E.g. say you are out of shape and your true Max HR is 195. If you take a Max HR test, you will achieve a 193-195 score in the test. However, if you become highly trained and do a Max HR test, you will likely fall short of your Max HR and score about 190-193. I cannot explain this, but this is what some studies have shown. You would think a highly trained athlete is tougher so in theory they should come closer, but then again an out of shape person may have less fear and less body awareness and not realize how crazy hard they are pushing themselves and get a higher number? Or is it possible that 8 above is true, i.e. if you become really fit, your Max will actually decline a few beats? No clear answer.
10) The two age based formulas to determine Max HR are in fact not useless and will create a perfect bell curve for the GENERAL Population, so in fact they are extremely useful for 80% of all Americans, i.e. they work great for more than 200 million Americans. How useful are they for the tiny segment of the population consisting of older former endurance athletes getting back into the game and for endurance athletes who never left the game? They are a useful starting point, but not accurate enough to be used as a training guide over the long term and you really need to do a Max HR test to find out what it really is, because if it is way off, you will be training incorrectly which will hamper and limit your progress.
11) I came across several different ways to test Max HR, but the consensus is the best, most accurate and simplest but certainly not the easiest is to wear a HR monitor and run a 5K race at the fastest pace you can maintain and sprint all out in the last 200 and use the highest number you get during that final sprint. The drawback with this method is if you are an old person, you have to be fit enough to do this without literally causing a cardiac event. This is the quandary the come backing old runner faces, they must use the age formulas until they are fit enough to do the test or until enough training data is accumulated to indicate the age formula is wrong.
12) I assume most people are aware that Fitbits and any HR monitor that does not utilize a strap across your chest is going to be very inaccurate. Also I saw a study that compared cheap and expensive strap monitors and the difference was negligible, i.e. 2-4 bpm difference.
13) Once your resting HR is known and relatively stable, and you do an an accurate Max HR test, a HR monitor is extremely useful for training in the correct range. However, as I found out when I was in my prime and I am finding out now as an old man, after using a HR monitor for a few weeks and paying close attention to it, you can actually predict your HR within 3 beats before you even look at it. So basically once you use a HR monitor and train in the correct ranges, and memorize what those feel like, you really don't need the monitor anymore you can go by feel and most runners do that. Of course there are runners who never checked with a monitor, but think they know how it should feel but are wrong and are running tempos too fast or too slow and/or easy days too hard or some bad combination of the two.