Maximum heart rate has nothing to do with fitness level or resting heart-rate.

195 sounds reasonable, especially for someone who has exercised regularly over the years. I know people over 40 who have a max heart-rate of well over 200.

I'm 45 and the highest heart-rate I have recorded is 180 though my hrm tells me that my max is 186. My RHR is 47.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by NorthTX40:
On all out exertions I've seen mine go as high as 195. This # seems high, but it is what it is. Using various calculators, it seems my # should be closer to 180<HR>

Use what real life has shown you to be a possible max - it may be higher. 195 isn't unrealistic. (I could hit mid 170s briefly in hard workouts at age 59f. I use 180 as my max.) There's a number of calculators, and they may vary by 15-20 bpm. Like you, I based mine on reality, and the zones tend to match these so considered them good. (Use % of heart rate reserve as "% of effort" column and match with "Perceived exertion" column.
http://www.coachbenson.com/ebtcorr.pdf[/URL" target="_blank">

I'm 37 and my max is at least 210. However, anything above
anaerobic threshold (for me, around 177) is not of much relevance
other than to know when you will absolutely explode in an all-out
sprint.



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I've just started running faithfully this year. I'm 52, and I've seen about 178 when I've maxed out, with an occasional bounce up to 181 - I suspect the 178-180 is probably correct. Just off the top of my head, I would expect genetic variation for this trait, with some kind of a skewed normal distribution - the "bell curve" with some unevenness due to environmental conditions. There must be good data sets out there somewhere.

Frogger

You're looking for a correlation between age and MHR. Since the formula for estimating MHR is linear - you subtract your age from 220 - you'd expect to see a linear relationship. If you just graphed age vs MHR, you should see something like a straight line. You'd also want a much larger sample size than 25. The bigger the sample size, the harder it is "to make stats say any thing you want".

quote:<HR>Originally posted by JonFrum:
Frogger

You're looking for a correlation between age and MHR. Since the formula for estimating MHR is linear - you subtract your age from 220 - you'd expect to see a linear relationship. If you just graphed age vs MHR, you should see something like a straight line. You'd also want a much larger sample size than 25. The bigger the sample size, the harder it is "to make stats say any thing you want". <HR>

Odds are (pun intended) you will not see a straight line, but instead a bunch of data points which will have a significant standard deviation (10-15 bpm anyway) from the best fit linear approximation.

I base this conjecture on what I saw looking at the results of over 75 VO2 tests. These tests did not measure MHR, but did measure Aerobic Threshold (AeT), Anaerobic Threshold (AT), and a VO2 for the "max measured" HR. That max measured HR was not the MHR, just the HR at the max point above AT that the tester was willing to take the test subjects.

Summary of fitting results to a linear function of age:
AT based on 220-age: 87%(220-age), standard deviation >15
AT best linear: 199-1.06age, std. deviation > 15
AeT best linear: 176-1.03age, std. deviation > 17
AeT based on 220-age: 74-75%, std. deviation > 17

It's worth comparing the AeT linear fit with Maffetone's 180-age formula. It's remarkably close, and if one assumes that some of the testees would have the adjustments for medication/ilness/injury that Maffetone recommends, it is basically identical. (That doesn't say what the standard or average deviation would be when adjustments are taken into account.)

Although the formulas seem to match conventional wisdom for AT (87%) and AeT (75%) as a percentage of 220-age, the standard deviations (and average absolute deviations) are high, and a large % of testees are off at least 10, 15, or 20 or more bpm from what these formulas would predict for any given individual.

Another example: "maximum measured" HR for age 30-35 varied from 163 to 202.

Maybe formulas work better when limited to elite athletes in their 20s, but for those of us in the general population, the only way to find out is to test ourselves (or have ourselves tested.)