Ramp Test: How hard is too hard? How to find your ***max*** safe HR?

Training
21

I used to worry about this when i started running aged 45. Getting my heart up really high was a new sensation and i thought that i’d damage something if i pushed it past a certain point. In truth your body will stop your body hurting itself. You can go pretty hard before you max out and then you’ll just run out of juice and slow down and stop. See the Central Governor theory mentioned above. Max HR is per-person and you cannot correlate it between yourself and others. Although age has a bearing on it for sure.
If your benchmark is a ramp test then you’ve probably not yet seen what you can really do if you’re motivated enough. My Max HR is 185 and i’ll see that in the last few hundred yards of a 5km race or 10km race. I’ll rarely see it on the bike - it would have to be in the last blast towards the line of a Zwift race, uphill, after a hail Mary break when i really really want to win.

In summary- you aren’t going to hurt yourself: Go as hard as you can, have fun. I believe that this is different for horses though and they really can run themselves to death.

3 Likes
22

Thanks @Stephen_Mac_Donald. No, none at all. And from all indications and past physicals, healthy as an ox.

It’s just that I can push and push until my heart is pounding in my ears, can barely focus on anything but what is right in front of me, breathing heavy, too heavy, lungs burning, keep going, pushing, world starts closing and buzzing, buzzing getting louder but “whooshy-er” and quieter at the same time, I start to get tunnel vision, feeling the oxygen drop, edges closing from the outside, until I yack.

And that has happened at 167 - 169 a few times. So then as I hit 174 during the ramp, and knew I could do another 1-3 points for sure, I was just like "Uhhhh… this can’t be safe, right??? Like, if 167 was enough stress on my heart to make me barf, going to 177 is just WAY too much stress on my heart, right? Like now we’re not doing building & strengthening, we’re just over-stressing and damaging???

Then I started digging into everything, and while there’s tons of info about finding your custom HR zones, there’s absolutely zero info on any signs or symptoms to watch for to find your safe limit [for that day, due conditions].

2 Likes
23

I’d like to sincerely thank all who took time to reply. I’ve learned a lot, and most importantly of all, it’s been extremely reassuring to hear others’ experiences, how they feel at the red line, etc.

I’m just going to go full rip. If my HR goes to 182, but I feel OK, great, let’s keep going, I guess I’m getting stronger [than my previous max HR]. Unless I yack on the cat, then I will stop.

And to those of you who have said you never feel nauseous, and your heart rate never feels all that high or gives out, you can just go until you literally can’t move your legs: I salute you! That is some seriously impressive ripage!! Right on!!

1 Like
25

GCN just posted a video you might be interested in (not watched it yet, just saw it and though of this thread)

3 Likes
26

MaxHR for me is a pulse I can maintain for some seconds (3-5s at least, to rule out measurement peaks) and I can reach it on very hard efforts (RPE 9+).

I define mine to be 197, I have observed 198, but no often. When fresh it‘s hard to get above 175-180 (around 90% MaxHR, depends on a lot of factors). I can hold around 190pm (95%) up to 20min (max effort).

I treat HR more like of a range. ±5 or more bpm don‘t matter. And I try not to overdo it, I also know the factors upping my HR for a given ride.

27

Cycling is not optimal for finding your Max HR. Running, Soccer, XC Ski, will give you better info. I can ge my HR up 5-7 bpm higher in those sports, so what I see in cycling doesn’t scare me.

I did have one “event”, going very hard on a 20min climb at 11k ft….In the hours after the effort I felt my heart muscle tired, some very mild soreness. Very strange. 2 weeks later I got all sorts of testing done, nothing abnormal.

Just pay close attention and take note of the unexpected.

4 Likes
28

How old are you?

To me you are really getting into your own head with this

If you are so scared go see a cardiologist and get a stress test

Life is too short to be so freaked out about something which is suppose to be fun

2 Likes
29

Good Lord what a post.

Yes you’re safe. No you don’t need to find your maxHr.

2 Likes
30

Just my personal experience but I’ve seen people yak after an effort probably three dozen times over the course of my interest in sport. None of them every died or experienced any lasting physical issue.

Alberto Salazar used to tell his athletes to go ahead and yak claiming they would feel better and be able to do more work if they yakked. :smiley:

If you know you have cardiovascular issues, don’t press your luck. Or if you have been sick in the last 72 hours. Other than that, I’d have no worries.

2 Likes
31

Don’t think most people are waiting for a sign they should stop. They just stop because they can’t go anymore. As it’s a power test, usually the “sign” is that you can’t hold the power anymore, or, incase of a ramp test, can’t increase it anymore. That’s a sign you should stop, because it’s pointless to carry on, you won’t get a better result.

32

The doc stressed it quite well IMO along the lines of ‘DONT STOP, the benefits of exercise far outweighs the negatives’, he lists them too. In my own story I think I put up with what I didn’t know was bowel (colon) cancer too long. If I hadn’t been fit its likely it would burst out of my colon and spread fatally. When it was diagnosed because I was in a good shape I was in the operating theatre ASAP. Also when I got chemotherapy after because I was in a good shape I was able to battle it appropriately.

2 Likes
33

I agree, I’m Type 1 Diabetic and have been for 38 years, in that time I’ve seen fellow diabetics lose limbs, and lose their lives to ravages of diabetes, @ 52 years old, I still get comments when I cycle with new people (and beat them in sprints) … your diabetic (in shock)

The hospital love me, my diabetes is well controlled because of the amount of cycling I do, I have had mild Diabetic retinopathy for about 12 years (any T1 for a long period would expect to get it) , and rather than get worse mine has remained stable and to some degree improved, according to the eye clinic, probably helped by my general health

I think the OP is just getting concerned by seeing a large number and panicking, I was talking to a cardiologist a few years ago (part of my diabetic care) about this, and basically he said, if your not getting chest pains when you exercise, there is only one number you have to worry about with your heart rate, and that’s 0

6 Likes
34

@WombleHunter thanks very much!! Very cool vid, and some really solid info!

35

Hey all. I decided to do a little HR test this weekend. On Saturday I did Pope, and still had a ton of gas in the tank, so decided to have some fun.

Fired up West Vidette -1 on Resistance mode, and just kept increasing my power every minute or so, as soon as my HR had stabilized at that output level.

Ended up holding 170 for about 18 solid minutes, including holding a peak of 180 - 181 for a full minute before starting to step it back down. I didn’t pay any attention to the number, I just went by how I felt, could I do more, etc. I also made my heart work harder by staying aero for the whole effort, and really spun up my cadence to 97 - 101 at the peak. Although kind of needed to at that point, to keep increasing power.

Absolutely annihilated my previous PBs, both in max HR, length of interval time held at max HR [previously 5 - 20 s], and holding 94.4% of my new max HR for 18 mins blew my mind.

I thought my “max” was about 165 - 168.

About 6 mo ago I decided to stop just spinning my wheels, and spend time off the bike learning more about how to get faster. That started w talking to people, reading on this forum and others, buying The Cyclist’s Training Bible, joining TR and actually chatting to people on this forum, asking questions. You’ve all helped me immensely, so sincere ‘Thank You’.

I can’t tell you what a difference this is going to make in my riding, and what it’s already made, psychologically. Even just doing that HR test, I felt so much better during it, knowing I could just go rip, and just focus on my breathing, and how I felt, not worry about “getting my HR too high”.

I did end up pulling it back after I held a min at 180, just bc my breathing was insanely laboured and I was starting to get a bit of tunnel vision. But absolutely zero nausea!! So yes, I can cruise a lot higher than 163 - 165 without nausea, for quite a while!

And while I know [see post] HR is so variable person to person, it does feel pretty good to be holding a minute at my calcu-guesstimated theoretical max HR; 180 [I’m 40].

I hope everyone has a great ride today!

image
image821×464 70 KB

7 Likes
36

And you could probably add 10 more bpm sprinting or fighting for a place after the same kind of effort in a Zwift race :fire:. It’s amazing how much higher it can go with a good motivation

3 Likes
37

This.

What you just did was discover that your previous barrier to pushing harder was not a physiological limit, but a psychological one. The majority of people, especially those who have no experience with endurance activity, have very little sense of what it feels like to know you can hold on and go longer.

2 Likes
38

Here’s an older GCN video in case interesting:

I actually went to see the cardiologist in this video (in Bristol, UK) to get checked out. Partly due to my age (I was about 46 at the time) and the idea that it’s wise to be checked out, and partly because I’d been experiencing some weird (to me) palpitations. Those turned out to be benign ectopic beats, but I’m glad I got checked out. One of the tests was an exercise stress test on a treadmill. My heart rate (min and max) has always been on the high side - in my twenties I could hit 220 and maintain in the 210-220 range for 10 minutes or so whilst running. Now my true max is probably just under 200. At the end of the stress test the ECG showed a touch of ST depression at around 195 bpm, so the cardiologist suggested that it might be sensible to use something like 190 as a “don’t go above that frequently for no reason” soft threshold. He said I was still fine to do ramp tests or go as hard as I can up hills etc, just maybe don’t bash up against my absolute max on a weekly basis.

I’d thoroughly recommend him BTW - www.sportscardiology.co.uk

1 Like
39

I have always hit my highest (max?) HR on the mtb, on steep hills, in thick sand or with a bunch of roots, and in the extreme FL summer humidity (and probably bordering on dehydration). It might go a little higher, but the last few years I’d hit 172 a few times, then last year I hit 174 a couple times and even hit 176 one time last year (I’ve binned the 176 as I think it was probably an erroneous reading, based on how I felt when it happened).

It’s good to experiment a little with your limits and to get comfortable with where they are and how you feel when you get close to max. I have pretty bad social anxiety that never really had been triggered by heart rate anomalies (I have arrhythmias & CVD), but have had a couple isolated, and very real, physiological reactions occur with panic attacks caused by erroneous heart rate monitor readings. Like, my left arm & hand was cold to the touch for 4 hours (by other people, not just my own perception of it), after I was pedaling along at 120 bpm and looked down and the HR monitor suddenly was reading 209 bpm.

40

I never hit my max heart rate during a ramp test. My highest recorded have been trying to hold on with a late solo breakaway (x2) and during a mountain trail running race. All 3 pretty close actually iirc

1 Like
41

@Oblewis Yes, exactly. It was totally a psych barrier, that I had created [partially for me, by inputs?].

I’m pretty used to pushing my absolute limits. Young, grew up comp. swimming, teens - early 20s, running 10ks, 30s - 40s, cycling. Nowhere near the level of an endurance athlete, but to my personal max, for 45 - 120 mins. Back then I know damn well I was pushing to my max, I didn’t need any HRM to tell me that!!

Just over the past 5 - 10 years, both getting stronger and fitter, so able to sustain higher and higher HRs, at the same time getting older, at the same time learning more, then had a couple barf / near barfs at 162 - 168, and got it stuck in my head that that was my “red line”, and might even be dangerous to go near it, and certainly dangerous to go over it.

Again, massive thanks to everyone in this thread. Absolutely beyond thrilled w the ride Saturday, and the [trainer]road ahead!

3 Likes