The “Get to the Point!” series is intended to be a “quick hitter” on individual topics. I get right into practical suggestions without extra anecdotes and explanations. Hope you enjoy!
Let’s get right to it! Several training plans and workouts often say to run at some percentage of your max heart rate. Zone training usually involves knowing your max heart rate and determining the proper training zones based off that number. But what if you don’t know it? Here are some of the more common ways I’ve seen to determine max heart rate:
220 minus your age and other calculations
This is the most basic and easiest way to determine your number. For a 30 year old, you take 220 and subtract 30 from it. Your max heart rate is 190. Although there is some science behind this calculation, it’s not specific to the individual at all. More recent science has come up with a new formula: Max Heart Rate = 207 – 0.7 (age) (2007, Gellish). So our 30 year old’s MHR is now 207 – 0.7 (30), or 186. This is a better formula for runners over 30.
I’ve also seen for females over the age of 35, the formula 206 – 0.88 (age) works well.
HILL REPEATS
This comes from Pete Pfitzinger’s book, Advanced Marathoning, but I have seen other similar workouts other places. Do 3 x 600m hill repeats at maximum effort, jogging down to the bottom of the hill each time. Look at your heart rate after completing the last rep. This should be within a few beats of your max heart rate.
800m SPRINTS
Another method to find your max heart rate comes from Sage Canaday via his YouTube channel VO2 Max Productions. Sage is an elite athlete who is very transparent with his training. His method involves running 800m (or half a mile) all out, resting 5 minutes, then running another all-out 800m. Checking your heart rate at the conclusion of the last run should be close to max. This is a good option if you don’t have hills available to you to do the other method!
CONCLUSION
Many methods exist for finding max heart rate. The key is obviously maximizing the effort. I like these because they (well, the second two anyway) require less effort and won’t disrupt current training much. Some suggest a 5k or 2-mile time trial, for example, to find max heart rate. Both of these requires at least a couple days to truly recover from, which is not ideal.
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