The Health and Fitness blog has an article about heart rate monitors. The article relates a story about how some joggers in the park were put off by the auther not providing the time because he was wearing a heart rate monitor and not a watch, and gives the usual 220 minus your age for finding your max heart rate. It finishes up with a link and explanation about how exercise reduces the risk of sudden cardiac death.

I am not a huge fan of heart rate monitors, but I have not really given them a fair chance in my training. I used them now and again in high school, when my max heart rate was in the 230s and my recovery time was about 35 seconds. Needless to say, using the 220 minus my age formula was worthless in terms of what my goal heart rates should have been, and since the person wearing the heart rate monitor dictated the rest everybody got we all hated it when I was wearing it. I bought my own that was integrated with my bike computer, and I managed to get my heart rate up to 232 doing an 800/400 meter workout.

If you are going to try to determine your max heart rate, I recommend actually elevating your heart. Start up with a light warm up, such as a 15 or 20 minute jog. I recommend doing the speed work on a track since it is easy to go fast without having to worry as much about dodging obstacles or traffic (unless you count pedestrian traffic anyway). Strap on the heart rate monitor, and run 3 by 800 meters at a very good pace, with 90 seconds rest between each repeat. Check your heart rate to see what it gets up to, but you will be getting it higher. After the 800s, run 2 or 3 by 400 meters as fast as you can, with 30 seconds rest. Check your heart rate as soon as you finish, unless your heart rate monitor tracks your max and then you don’t need to look. Whatever you get your heart rate up to is a much better indication of around where your max is than 220 minus your age. Finish up with 15 to 20 minutes easy recovery jogging.

I also recommend discovering your resting heart rate. The best way to do that is to take your pulse every morning as soon as you wake up and before you move around. I’ll get into more details about that in a future tip. To recap how to check your (approximate) max heart rate:

  1. Warm up for 15 to 20 minutes (easy)
  2. 3×800m w/90 seconds recovery (hard)
  3. 2 or 3×400m w/30 seconds recovery (as fast as possible)
  4. Cool down for 15 to 20 minutes (easy)