A 16-year study of 5,500 healthy women that examined the link between abnormal heart rate response and the cardiovascular disease has produced a major correction to a decades-old formula for calculating maximum heart rate.
The correction is the subject of an article in today's New York Times, Recalibrated Formula Eases Women's Workouts
. According to the researchers, the standard formula for predicting maximum heart rate, 220 minus age, is significantly off for women. The corrected formula is 206 minus (age * 0.88).
For a woman training at 85% of her supposed max heart rate, the new formula generates a rate nearly ten beats per minute less than the old formula, a very noticeable difference in effort!
But beyond the fact that the old male-biased formula has been used for forty years to make training recommendations for women, the real problem is that the old formula is no good for men either. Or, to be more precise, since the old formula was based on averages, it didn't account for individual variation. It turns out that individuals have very different heart rates, both in untrained and trained populations.
The article quotes Tim Church, an exercise researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research center in Baton Rouge, who echoes my thoughts when he writes:
"Except for elite athletes heart rate monitoring is not very useful and can distract from finding an exercise program you enjoy and will stick to. Everyone kind of has their own natural pace. If you like to work a little harder, then work harder. If you like to work less hard but a little longer, then do that. Find what works for you."
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On another topic, the recess appointment of Don Berwick as head of the Medicare Program reminds me of his son who ran for NN(4x800, 4x400, 1:58, 51+). Dan was also an actor whose play rehearsals and missed practices bothered me. One day while doing a workout(after a play he starred in) a good looking girl came by and said, "Dan you were great last night". Dan said, "see coach, that's why I do it". Another memory was after coming in 2nd in the All State 4x800 final we were in the 4x400 ( 5th seed). I said let's do it: we won't win, but so what. Dan said, "coach you don't understand I'm an actor first and a runner 2nd". I couldn't argue with that. A great kid and his father also is agreat guy, although we disagreed on politics in our many discussions. He clearly believes in the "public welfare overruling individual responsibility and choices.
I was all set to send a link to this comment to Dan because it's a cute story and I would want to hear if JT were telling endearing, decade-old stories about me, but then I got to the end and you had to bring up politics on a running blog. Took away all the charm.
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