Heart rate as an effort measurement

A question about : Heart rate as an effort measurement

I was wondering if anyone else has observed this phenomenon with their own heart rate:

It doesn't seem to matter how hard I work out, how fast I run, how brutal an Insanity interval, etc.., I cannot seem to get my heart rate over 120 beats per minute. In fact 100 is the usual highest, and I have delved into the rarified realm of 120 perhaps only once or twice.

My resting pulse is about 42 and I am 58 years of age. I've asked my doctor about this, and he's a runner, and he says it's not the absolute heart rate that matters so much as the relative rate.

AND YET

Everywhere in the literature I read things that suggest if your heart rate isn't at 180 then you're really not working! So who's right? Anyone else have the same problem, if problem is indeed what it is?

Best answers:

• Ok then, how does your perception of effort compare to your heart rate.
  Where your perceived level of effort is 1 would be equivalent to lying in bed. 10 would be a gut busting, heart bursting effort.
  So when you got to 120 bpm, did your effort feel like a 10? As a bit of extra help, running at a conversational pace should have a perceived effort of 6 or 7, depending on how fit you are.
  Also these absolute numbers can be meaningless. If I didn't know my max heart rate, it could be calculated by subtracting my age from 220, which would give a figure of 175.
  When running, the last 5 - 10 minutes can go up to high as 180 and I am still here. Also the perceived effort level at those times was about 8 - 9.
  HTH.
• Are you just doing middle-long distance?
  I've had the same issue, I get fatugued but never truly exhausted as I could get in my youth running my heart out for 90 minutes on the football pitch.
  I can run a quick(ish) HM and feel tired but never really totally holding my self up kind of tired that I would love to recapture.
• Do you do any speedwork? Say hill training or interval training?
  I take it you have a HRM? If so, does it have a max heart rate feature? If so, use it in the following test.
  Hill training: Warm up for 10 - 15 minutes. Find a moderately steep hill, between 100 and 200m. Run up it as fast as you can. Jog back down. Repeat 3 - 5 times. Warm down.
  Find the max HR from your monitor. It could be as the doctor suggests and it is all relative.
  The following is not medical advice, just an anecdote, perhaps worthy of further investigation.
  At school, one of the girl's in my class, undertook some exercise type of effort, but her heart rate did not rise, at all. Our biology teacher suggested that instead of beating faster, the heart was expanding even more than normal, thus keeping the heart rate constant. Now I don't know if this is a 'thing', but you could ask your doctor about it.
• We had that discussion with my OH the other day. I'm in my mid-40s and have been physically active for many years, really picked training up in the last 12 months, did a triathlon and half-marathon in last 6 months, train 4/5 times a week. I have upped running speed and now can do 10k run easily without feeling out of breath, even singing through it....and yet, my heart rate remains what it was over 10 years ago....160!
  It is odd because I feel really good, not like I am pushing myself when I used to feel like I was pushing myself to the max before doing shorter distance at a shorter pace, but heart rate has not changed! It does go down very quickly though as I stop and I do feel that my resting rate has reduced. I am fit, eat fine, don't drink, never smoked, sleep well.
  My OH who is very active can't get his heart rate over 130 no matter what. I think I have read that there is a difference between male and female, but haven't looked into it more.
• I've noticed before that when I'm training for longer distance events, I stop being able to push myself as hard on the short stuff. It's as if I've got too much into the habit of holding a bit back. Maybe there could be an element of that going on.
  I doubt that'd be the whole story though. 120 for max effort does sound reeeallly low.
  Do you ever run with other people, like at a club? I'll push myself MUCH harder if I'm running against friends/rivals in a coached session than if I'm out on my own. I can't push myself to wobbly gasping for breath eyes and ears going funny stage either, but I can't not do it if I'm getting competitive against friends.
• Have you tried a different HR monitor?
  120 sounds crazy low.
  I've always used the 220 - Age as a guide, but i'm on the high side. Resting usually 70ish, highest i've seen for me was 206bpm on a particularly savage climb.
• Your heart is probably stronger from all the exercise you do, your clean diet has kept your arteries free from clogging up. Thus it does not have to do as many pumps, as each pump gets more blood around your body. Hence your lower heart rate.
  https://drmirkin.com/public/ezine021708.html
• I think to an extent it's different for different people. I'm a bit younger than the OP and my resting rate is about 44 and after a brisk four mile walk with 400 foot of climbing it's just under 60. But I doubt I could run to the end of the garden and back without gasping for breath. I do a fair amount of walking, about 7 miles a day with half of that up steep hills, but as for being considered 'fit'... not so much.
• My gym buddy has a very high pulse rate, never lower than 100 even when resting (she's seen a specialist etc etc).
  We stopped comparing heart rates on the running machine because hers was getting very high very quickly and mine was much lower. It's not a good way of measuring effort, because it would look like she's working out much harder than I do, but she's not (and she's not much fitter in general).