As I mentioned to Edward last week in a comment, I have begun to read Gina Kolata's book along with him and a few others. I have also checked out her book from 2003, Ultimate Fitness, the Quest for Truth about Exercise and Health.
Chapter 4 is about Maximum Heart Rates and Fat Burning Zones. Gina likes to dig and find those arcane details about her study that sometimes shows the warped sense of an issue that we have developed over time with no basis for fact. She attempts to do that with this issue on maximum heart rate but really misses the point.
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Scheduled WHEE diaries:
Feb 22
Mon PM - WHEE Open
Feb 23
Tue AM - WHEE Open
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Feb 24
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Weds PM - Edward Spurlock (Kolata, Ch. 3)
Feb 25
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Feb 27
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Feb 28
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March 1
Mon AM - NC Dem
Mon PM - WHEE Open
Gina's Obsessions
If you have ever met an exercise addict...especially an addict to Spinning...well then you have met Gina Kolata. Spinning is all about a race to elevate your heart rate by adding more resistance to the spinning and thus increasing your heart rate just as you can do with elevation on a treadmill, running steps at your local football stadium, or in rowing in real on the water or in a gym. People who adopt these sports must know their numbers. They become somewhat obsessive about maximum heart rate, resting heart rate, VO2 Max, and the rate at which their heart rate begins to recover after strenuous exercising within the first minute. All of these are critical to success of the program but they may also impact their heart health.
When Did The Maximum Heart Rate Originate?
To understand this answer, you must know a little of the history of heart disease. For many years after heart disease became more researched about the turn of last century (that would be 1900), doctors began to offer medical advice on how to most effectively impact a heart attack victim that survived. We viewed the heart as a muscle. Right so far. however, we assumed it was in a very weakened state and should not be heavily taxed even after a long recovery of inactivity. It was almost as if the heart had a pre-determined number of beats in its life time and those precious beats must be preserved to increase life expectancy.
Not until the mid-1960's did we realize that like other muscles in the body, the heart could be strengthened and improve in function. In fact, when we studied endurance athletes we saw that they had on average larger hearts. Again, this was often seen as fault. If your heart gained size, it was often thought that the heart valves stayed the same size
and this caused heart issues with murmurs or leakage around the valves.
So in the late 1960's, medicine was taking a big bold step and asking heart disease survivors to exercise under a controlled program and improve the function of their heart. The obvious question becomes: At what level is too high for these patients. Thus we have some research into how to determine the maximum heart rate. oh, I'm sorry... there actually was no research.
Dr William Haskell who had just earned his PhD. was working with Dr Sam Fox at the Public Health Service published a report in 1970 that basically charted the maximum heart rates of 10 or 11 men (I have seen various numbers on this). No women. The men did have different ages but no one older than 65. They quickly recognized a relationship between age and maximum rates. It then quickly developed into the now popular version of self calculation of 220- age as the standard. Thus at age 61, I should assume that 100% of my maximum heart rate is 159. They never envisioned that this publication would become the gold standard simply because of Polar...yes, the heart rate monitor company. They wanted a quick and dirty formula to use in their monitors to begin promoting their latest gadget.
It has become very popular. I have seen reports that just in the US, they are currently selling about 750,000 monitors each year. That's a lot of dollars folks since some of these monitors are over $100 each.
Many further refinements have been made to this simple formula that originated from a graph of just 10 men. Remarkable, the future versions are very close within 5-8 hearts per minute. Most of the refinements give less allowance for younger exercisers like 20-25, it works really well for the 40-45 age but it is a little too restrictive for people like me at about age 60. Most of the other calculation methods show a 61 year old male as in the 163-168 range.
Do You Know Your Resting Heart Rate?
Many of the other methods now being deployed rely on your resting heart rate. Unlike, your maximum heart rate, this one can be accurately calculated by yourself. When you go to your local pharmacy you often check your blood pressure at the little station back near the sales counter. But this also gives your heart rate. No this is not your resting heart rate since you just walked a block to get to the store and back to the back. This rate will probably read 75-95 based upon your physical condition and whether you just a a strong coffee or a coke.
I would like all of you to learn your resting heart rate. It is important. Recent studies have shown that prople who have resting heart rates above 75 are over 40% more likely to have a cardiac event within the next 10 years. That should be reason enough to know and give you some time to improve it before you become a stat.
Here is how to check it. Before getting out of bed in the morning, simply check your wrist pulse for at least 15 seconds and then multiply by 4. You count 18 in 15 seconds...you're at 72. or better results use either 30 seconds or a full minute and then record it after you get up. The next two mornings do the same thing unless you get less than 6-7 hours of sleep. If you are up late the night before drinking and watching a game...forget it. It will not be accurate unless you do that every night.
With some exercise you can change it. Three years ago when I started on my weight loss journey, my resting heart rate was around 85. God awful. The last time I checked it was 3 weeks ago with a Polar monitor. It was 62 that morning but my average for the last three months has been about 65 with the lowest reading this last time. My goal is to finally get it to 60. Of course, it does drop slightly as we get older but not that quickly.
Ok, it is getting close to post time. I feel like I'm at the races. Before signing off, I want to do a recognition of a couple of great diaries posted at DKos that deal with portions of this topic. I re-read each of the diaries (although I hadn't seen one) and I'm absolutely amazed at the knowledge level of these diaries. I guess I've learned alot or it is just an admission of how weak I was on this subject. I'll keep researching and add to this diary at some later point. I'm really interested in the effect of VO2 Max on your HR Max and how this is calculated into calories burned while exercising. Edward has spoken before on the inefficiencies of calories expended by various machines.
I don't expect you to read these diaries right now unless you have the time but at least get to them over the next week. Both of these folks have contributed to WHEE before but 2 of the ones listed came before WHEE existed and were not a part of Fitness Mondays.
Adzak on Stress Response
Adzak on Adaptations to Exercise
Adzak on HR Monitors here at WHEE
Chico David RN on Introduction to Exercise on WHEE