Sports nutrition

Heart rates and training zones

Measuring the maximum heart rate

• The generally accepted method of calculating your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220, eg for 28 yrs, max heart rate is 192.

• An alternative, more complicated, method is to subtract 0.8 x your age from 214. eg for 28 years this would be 192. But be aware that this can be inaccurate by as much as 10% for up to 10% of the population

• A more empirical method is to get on a treadmill, run as hard as you can for 3 minutes, recover by running slowly for 3 minutes, then running as hard as you can for a further 3 minutes. Record the maximum heart rate achieved at any point duing this final phase.

Training zones