Subject: RE: Exercise bradycardia No medical background here so I'm not sure if this is some kind of medical abnormality--as in your heart rate isn't increasing enough to meet the increased demands for oxygen when you exercise, or just a normal result of training--it's lower than most people at rest and when doing moderate exercise, because you're fit. Make sure you know which one it is. If the former, you need to discuss it with your doctor. If the latter, you simply need to determine your zones with a proper field test instead of using "220-age". The latter may or may not work depending on your physiology and fitness. People who are more fit tend to have a "max" that might be higher than that.
I've been running since childhood and have a pretty low resting heart rate for obvious reasons (in the mid to high 40's ). When I do the 20-minute "lactate threshold test" (there are various protocols, but basically, you get good and warmed up, then run as hard as you can for 20 minutes, and record the average heart rate. If you are in the 20-25 minute range for 5K, then a 5K race works well for this. ) I tend to average between 173 and 176 BPM. 220-age for me would give me approximately my threshold HR, not my max ( I'm 46. ) I know that's lower than some people--not sure if that's due to a low resting pulse, general fitness, or just how hard I can push myself. It's definitely not a "max"--I've seen 194 on a tempo pickup in a hard workout in the heat where I was almost hit by a motorbike, and low 180's would be typical for very hard shorter efforts like 400 or 800m. It's been my experience at least that my LT rate doesn't change much with training--what does is how fast/long I can go at it. That may be different for less experienced or younger athletes, though, or those who have a shorter distance focus where they are often pushing efforts above threshold in training.
Most running programs define HR zones by % of this "threshold" level, not max, which is pretty hard to determine. (You probably wouldn't want to go to max! ) Edited by Hot Runner 2016-03-02 7:20 AM
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