Exceeding Max Heart Rate...Dangerous?

[jshell]

Just started cycling to work again after a few years of little excercise and poor diet due to working in Nigeria. Plan is to get back to previous fitness over the next couple of months. So, Tuesday, 1st cycle of 15km to work I wore a HRM. When I checked the logs at work I'd actually hit 183 bpm (105%) of my theoretical MHR, the calc being 220 - age = MHR. My resting HR is still 48.

2nd day I hit 101%....

Am I going to die soon through burst ventricles??????

[the_stoat]

Ignore the 220 minus your age rubbish as if I stuck to that I am Peter Pan and have been 8 for many years.

Get on a static bike and find your true max heart rate, you may need some gentle encouragement.

[Parsnip]

Extremely dangerous - exceeding your MHR is a heart attack.

The 220-age thing does not work - not even slightly - there are other formulae out there which are supposedly more accurate, but no formula designed for an "average" human will ever be as accurate as finding out what you body can do - 220-age tells me 196 - my max has been 191 for at least 3 years.

The way to get your MHR - warm up, ramp up your effort until you feel like you have to slow down and then go flat out - sprint up a hill etc.

What you really want to be looking at is your resting HR - you have very little influence on your max HR, but as you get fitter, you resting HR will drop.

Bear in mind that wireless HRMs can suffer from interference (magnetic loops in road, powerlines etc.) which can give you silly spikes where there shouldn't be one - cruising along and your HR hits 200+ for example.

[Raoul Duke]

There are so many factors that can affect your max HR - interference is certainly one to watch for.
However, particularly with cycling you will find abnormal spikes quite commonplace, i.e. when you reach a flat section on a steep climb, when you may have been working at 100% of your max then suddenly stopped spinning your legs. What happens then is your heart has to compensate for all the extra work that your legs were doing pumping the blood around moments earlier and increases the work rate to cope. I have registered spikes in this situation of over 220bpm, you can feel the sudden increase in heart rate but its only brief.
When i first noticed what i thought was a dangerously high spike on my HR monitor i mentioned it to my doctor, when in for a routine check up, and after being checked over was told not to worry.
If your heart rate is increasing to / above your theoretical max and then not dropping back quickly then you may want to get a second opinion but i was told that its the speed that you revert back to your resting HR that determines whether there is a problem, rather than the max which is a very generalised figure.
However dont take my word for it - if your in any doubt go see your GP.

[HowMuchLonger]

Ignore theoretical max as it is just this, theoretical.

When I used to row (international level), our crews maxhr varied by about 30bpm. What is most important is the recovery time. The lower the recovery time, the fitter you are.

[Meoricin]

I nearly blacked out after a set of deadlifts once - couldn't stand up, couldn't see, buzzing in my ears. A count of my pulse while watching the clock once my vision came back had 60 beats in around 15 seconds, which if accurate would put it at 240.

For obvious reasons I doubt it was actually -that- high, but I don't doubt it was well over 200. Haven't had it happen since, not even sure how I managed to do it - it was a weight which I haven't much surpassed in the year or more since then (it'd be all the weight I have), and I did a couple of reps. I usually do 2/3 reps with that weight now, IIRC I did 5 then.

[HowMuchLonger]

Meoricin said:

For obvious reasons I doubt it was actually -that- high,

It could well have been that high. The majority of people never perform tests to find their actual max, it sounds like you did.

Edited by HowMuchLonger on Friday 5th August 16:57

[driverrob]

While recovering from rheumatic fever as a teenager I went into slightly manic training mode. I'd been told that the illness can cause heart damage but that mine was OK. I regularly hit 180 bpm in moderate exercise at first and 240 bpm (as best I could count it) after an uphill sprint one time.
It didn't do me any harm. I got back into cycling, athletics and rugby.
Now, at 65, my exercise is more moderate but my blood pressure is reassuringly low and my resting heart rate is usually below 70 bpm.
If you have a defective heart (like a couple of teenagers in the news in the last year) you could die playing football. If not, exercise can only be good for that vital organ.

Just my opinion, of course.

[jshell]

Thanks for taking the time to post, guys! It was worrying me a little when I saw that. Two days after that run I repeated the same 15km cycle to work and only hit 101% of theoretical MHR.

My recovery time is fairly swift, and as said before my reasting HR is 47/48 bpm.




I'll be carting my results over the coming weeks....

[HowMuchLonger]

If you are going to use zoned hr training it is definitely worth performing a max heart rate test.

[johnxjsc1985]

I always thought that as difficult as Max Heart rate tests are its probably safe to say you could add a few beats on to that as well as very few people could punish themselves into a heart attack.

[BliarOut]

swerni said:

Your max heart rate is probably higher than 183.

You really need to push it to find your real max.
You know when you're at the max, it's normally followed by you puking

Or descending Ditchling Beacon