Just wondering. I wonder if Fitbit can detect hr max well; it gets hard at the higher end
My max HR is around 183, as measured by the gym equipment (e.g. elliptical trainer). I have a polar chest HR monitor but it connects to my phone for viewing the HR, but not too convenient except on a bike which it attached to the handlebars.
This seems pretty good for me - way off the 220 minus age benchmark (in a good way) - but matches my epigenetic / phenotypic clock measures.
I want to measure my VO2Max - but its been hard to get into the exercise physiology labs at the academic centers where I would normally go, as they’ve all been closed for COVID for the past two years.
How about you Alex - what is your Max HR?
Just curious, what are your thoughts on max heart rate and v02? Coming from a running background, I don’t put a lot of emphasis or care into them. But, I haven’t thought about them much as related to aging, outside of the fact that as you age both tend to drop (they drop much slower if you continually exercise throughout your life).
My max is around 180 and my V02 is typically calculated in between 50-56 depending on where I am in my training.
I am interested to see how they may or may not change after taking rapamycin for awhile. Especially heart rate. That would be pretty wild if rapamycin + training had any effect on max heart rate, I doubt it would.
My max heart rate was 204 as of 2021-02-15 (measured via DexaFit). VO2max was 38.5. DexaFit is strictly better b/c controlled experiment and it has a chest strap.
In 2018-04, an exercise test showed max_HR as 203 and VO2max as 52. And resting metabolic rate of
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FitBit measured max_HR at 187 during a run in Amsterdam yesterday, but Fitbit is not as precise as a chest monitor (+not as long) + Fitbit post-processes the data (it’s not raw data) + this matters more at higher numbers. I ran around Europe for 2 weeks straight the past 2 weeks so I should be more fit now than I was in february last year (when I was stuck home during COVID)… Omg that time was followed by a 1-year period of complete magic.
Can I attach my xls file here? This doesn’t allow xls file uploads…
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Wow - great to hear you’ve been out exercising! Well done.
Arhu
#8
185 bpm, vo2max between 58-62 ml/kg/min according to the polar fitness test
Arhu
#9
you can use the polar beat app, under upgrades is a fitness test which can measure your vo2max
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https://www.youtube.com/@LanceHitchings noticed a huge increase in max_HR (well above what would be predicted by his age) after stem cell infusions. He had to manually change his age on the app because the app would auto-adjust his max_HR by his age, but this auto-adjusting is wrong.
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Arhu
#11
Although there is a correlation between age and max heart rate the spread is huge, maybe he didn’t go deep enough before (to reaching your max heart rate or come close to it you need to be very fresh and do a huge effort and continue when you already really felt like dying a minute earlier)
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Amongst elite endurance athletes, who have historically the best VO2MAX values in the world, heart rate max is all over the place.
When training/exercising, your heart will adapt to do the work. It takes months and months of training to achieve that type of adaptation. I’ve never put too much emphasis or care into max heart rate. I think a more important metric is stroke volume.
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This is an old paper, but I had not seen it. An interesting research study would be to test the impact of rapamycin on MaxHR.
I’ve found that my MaxHR is about 20 to 30 years better (i.e. 20 to 30 beats per minute higher) than the typical age-driven predictors would predict, but I haven’t monitored it closely and nor did I do pre and post testing to see the rapamycin impact. Another biomarker for people to track pre and post rapamycin (and report here).
A new study by a group led by Catherine Proenza, PhD and Roger Bannister, PhD from the University of Colorado School of Medicine reports that one of the reasons for the age-dependent reduction in maximum heart rate is that aging depresses the spontaneous electrical activity of the heart’s natural pacemaker, the sinoatrial node.
A dissertation from Eric D. Larson, a graduate from Proenza’s lab in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, is described in the article. Larson said, “I utilized a method to record ECGs from conscious mice and found that maximum heart rate was slower in older mice, just as it is in older people. This result wasn’t unexpected. But what was completely new was that the slower maxHR was because the individual pacemaker cells – called sinoatrial myocytes, or ‘SAMs’ – from old mice just couldn’t beat as fast as SAMs from young mice.”
The researchers recorded the tiny electrical signals from the isolated cells and found that SAMs from old mice beat more slowly, even when they were fully stimulated by the fight-or-flight response which can be observed in these individual cells. The slower beating rate was due to a limited set of changes in the action potential waveform, the electrical signal that is generated by the cells. The changes were caused by altered behavior of some ion channels in the membranes of the older cells. (Ion channels are proteins that conduct electricity across the cell membrane. Imagine a balloon with little tiny pinholes that open and close to let the air in and out; ion channels are like the pinholes.)
- Eric D. Larson, Joshua R. St. Clair, Whitney A. Sumner, Roger A. Bannister, and Cathy Proenza. Depressed pacemaker activity of sinoatrial node myocytes contributes to the age-dependent decline in maximum heart rate. PNAS, October 2013
My VO2Max at age 60 was 56.8. Recently tested again, age 74=48.6. I do have chronic bronchitis which has slowly crept up in its effects over the decades. Worst possible environment-grew up in heavy smoking household, smoked up until age 21, worked in numerous jobs with exposure to volatile vapors. But, at age 20, I began pretty intensive athletic fitness regimen which, I suppose, may have maintained health well at least so far. But, I think the body remembers and delivers payback to some extent as we age.
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RPS
#15
Pre Rapa my max HR was 170. Two years later it was still 170. A further year on and I’ve had three readings over that level, the highest of which was 180.
Note this happened in late summer hot temperatures - now it is much cooler my HR doesn’t reach much above 160 when doing HIIT, so l have a “reserve “ for when the body needs extra cooling.
Will be interesting to see where it peaks next summer.
(56y.o.)
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Beth
#16
Sorry if this was already discussed, and most likely it was!, but how does everyone measure their vo2max?
I am not so concerned about getting the most accurate number, meaning, I don’t feel I need to go to a $$$ lab and do anything too fancy.
I’m just looking for a baseline, even if it’s not accurate, so I can track myself over the years to make sure I’m not losing ground. So I guess I’m looking for a way to track my progress accurately.
Tom_C
#17
Hi Beth! You can try this Cooper Test - 12 minute run to assess your vo2max
There are many other websites where you can calculate your VO2Max based on the Cooper test
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Tim
#18
When I was on the job, the Fire Department tested our VO2Max every three years or so. At one test, the doctor told me I had the second-highest score. The guy with the highest score was a smoker. Go figure.
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Some options are discussed in this thread. Typically an academic exercise physiology lab in major cities / major universities (or even community colleges) are cheap options: Budding Supercentenarians: What is your VO2Max target at age 100?
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Paul
#20
Max HR also decrease with elevation - about 1 beat per minute for every 1000 feet of elevation
I live at nearly 7,000 ft
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