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Judging fitness level by heart rate - Bike Forums
I read some place that how fast your heart rate comes down after a workout is a good measure of your fitness level.
After a 30 min workout, my heart rate went from about 162 to 103 in 3 minutes.
What does that say about my fitness level?
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Very good question.
I have a feeling that how fast your heart rate drops doesn't really have to do with your fitness level.
Years ago, when i didn't bike or lift, my heart rate would plummet about 15 seconds after a good P.E..
Class. Today, if I was to go for a 40 mile ride, I'd be the same.
My heart rate would drop to normal in no time.
back in the day: 140-80 in one minute.
now: 130-60 in one minute.
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What I've heard is that if your heart rate can drop from something quite high to below 100 bpm in 1 minute, that's good.
But whatever the number, the faster it drops, the better.
I haven't checked recently, but mine has dropped from 194 bpm (near max HR) to 100 bpm in 1 minute.
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How fast your heart rate drops does relate to fitness level, but more on the anaerobic side.
Essentially, if you can drop your heart rate fast, then it means you can recover quickly from anaerobic bursts (i.e.
Sprints, steep hills, etc) more quickly.
For example, I can compare my training intervals when I am in good shape and at the beginning of the season.
When I am in good shape I can usually half the amount of rest between intervals, but keep the same intensity.
My body recovers (i.e.
Heart rate drops) more quickly.
Based on your numbers it looks like you are trying to relate your aerobic heart rate.
Heart rate recovery and aerobic training don't really relate much.
A better indication of aerobic fitness levels it to try to increase the duration at which you can sustain effort at/or around your anaerobic threshold.
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HRR (heart rate recovery) is also a significant indicator of coronary disease.
Study by Lauer, et al., at the Cleveland Clinic found "Conclusion: Even after submaximal exercise, abnormal heart rate recovery predicts death." I'm guessing that conclusion is pretty significant to most people.
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Originally Posted by Terex HRR (heart rate recovery) is also a significant indicator of coronary disease.
Study by Lauer, et al., at the Cleveland Clinic found "Conclusion: Even after submaximal exercise, abnormal heart rate recovery predicts death." I'm guessing that conclusion is pretty significant to most people.
"Abnormal" ... meaning what?
Too fast? Too slow?
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Originally Posted by Machka "Abnormal" ...
Meaning what? Too fast?
Too slow? Werd. Thats like saying "when the patients leg doesn't look good, cut it off"
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You guys... Google "lauer" and "heart rate recovery".
Read one of the many articles.
In the meantime, you can "guess" which hearts are worse, ones that recovery from exercise abnormally quick or ones that recover abnormally slow.
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I don't think HRR is such a great measure of fitness.
It might be a good health indicator for two people of comparable, relatively low, fitness.
But obviously if person A does some work and recovers fast, then that's inferior to a person B who does the same work and doesn't particularly raise their heart rate.
I'd argue B is significantly more fit in this case than A.
Also, once you reach a moderate level of fitness I doubt recovery rate makes much of a health difference anymore, because your fitness-based health factors are now so miniscule to begin with.
But it might well be a good health indicator and measure of fitness among relatively inactive people.
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One of the big benefits of monitoring how quickly your HR drops is that you can tell if you are overtraining.
In other words if you baseline your recovery rate (especially looking at interrecovery) and then notice that it is dropping more slowly than normal, it could be an indication of overtraining or that you never fully recovered from the previous session.
As to the debate on intrarecovery heart rate as a measure of conditioning, according to the authors of Heart Zones Cycling quicker recovery is an indicator of improved fitness.
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I don't know if you can say whether or not those numbers are good, because it depends on so many things.
But I think if you can see a trend in yourself, like you recover faster the more you train, than that's probably a good sign that you're getting in better shape.
Just a thought. I do remember a PE class, though, where we had to do a test like this and our grade was based on how fast our HR dropped, which the teacher said was THE way to test fitness.
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Polar has info on HRR but I haven't looked at the site lately.
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This is true. Was part of a grad.
Students work while in college about recovery HT to normal following hard workouts.(running as fast as possible up 8 stories of stairs x 6 if I remember correctly) The only problem is finding some data to know what recovery rate indicates superior fittness.
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