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Garmin changing my max HR?

cassandraann1
2 months ago

I’m a 40 year old woman. Eleven years ago, my max heart rate during  a lab vo2 max test was 191. In the past few years, my highest observed heart rate (all out sprinting) has been 180. Twice recently, Garmin has wanted to change my max heart rate to 190 (this wasn’t detected but calculated; my max hr during the activities was 167).

It seems unlikely to me that my max heart rate is actually 190. I’ve read old posts saying this may be a bug in the Garmin software.

Can anyone familiar with this situation help me understand whether this is a bug or a possibly unreliable calculation? This is on a FR 255 and using a Polar H10 chest strap.

  • 0 2 months ago

    You are right to worry about the accuracy of the estimate, since Max HR is a cornerstone for virtually all the training metrics. You are also right to be skeptical about the 190 estimate if your Max HR was 191 11 years ago.

    The algorithm for maximum heart rate detection has been changing in the past couple of years. Assuming your have a recent firmware, you probably have the most recent version. This version is quite good, but not foolproof. You are already maximizing the accuracy by wearing a chest strap.

    Taking the peak HR from activities is tricky. Anaerobic activities like sprinting give you a very high RPE but the heart rate might be still much lower than Max HR when the muscles give up.

    Make sure you use a calibrated test.

    My favorite way of estimating Max HR is from a recent 5K personal best (where you gave all you had in the tank). Take the peak HR of that race towards the end, add 5bpm.

    You will find other calibrated tests online.

    If you are not up for a very demanding run/test, keep the estimate from Garmin.

  • 0 2 months ago

    It happens to me as well from time to time. I turned the automatic maxHR detection off but the watch still sometimes changes it toba lower value

  • 0 2 months ago

    Max HR is really hard to achieve in a field test. Another way to get correctly distributed pulse zones - do a LTHR guided test, especially since you are already using an external sensor. 

    I'm a little older, 60 yo and my max HR is not really degraded in the past 10 years (ok, may be by 5-6 bpm), but it correlates quite noticeably with my running condition - the more training in 4-5 Z, the higher the max HR will be expected. But it is always only 2-3 bpm +/-, not more.