When viewing an activity I see you can look at BPM or % Max HR.....the % Max HR for my activities seems very high. I am trying to figure out what calculation is being used to determine Max HR??? Thanks.
There are a number of different formulas for calculating max HR - simplest being 220-your age. Garmin will use one to come up with a Max HR based on the information you enter into the device.
For greater relevance have your own max HR recorded from testing and enter that number.
Any and all of the formulas is almost guaranteed to give the wrong max HR.
The standard deviation among any age group is 10 BPM. This means that:
~68% lie within a span of 20 BPM
~95% lie within a span of 40 BPM
~5% is even outside that.
Anyone training according to HR zones (HR zones are typically smaller than the above mentioned spans!) should really find out their own max HR by testing it, not by calculating it with some formula. Otherwise, it is almost guaranteed that they will be training at the wrong HR.
