I am a 67 year old rider in the specialty phase of a Marathon MTB training plan for an A race later this month. TR has been prescribing VO2 max On-Off workouts which jack up my HR to pretty high levels. I am not on any medications and in reasonable health but due to my age I have started to get nervous doing workouts that push high HR’s for an extended period. I recently did Forester -2 and felt that I could have completed it but got nervous and on the last two sets took the 3rd and 6th interval off.
Just curious what opinions are out there as to the pros and cons (benefits/risk) of sustaining high HRs in older athletes.
Here is a summary of that workout. I was traveling with my trainer and needed to make a few adjustments early in the workout due to not having my dialed in home set-up. I.e. fans, access to water bottles, etc.
Thanks Eddie, I asked my doc when I had my last physical and he didn’t discourage me from taking on Hard VO2 Workouts. I will give him specifics this time so he knows how my heart is being taxed. However, I have had a few older friends who were long time endurance athletes who developed A-fib in their 60’s. Since Trainer Road has a pretty large sample of older riders I was curious of their experience with VO2 workouts.
Yeah, the long term a-fib comes from years and years of high training and scarring.
If an individual is healthy, then getting that heart rate up and increasing or maintaining vo2 max actually shows protective benefits for all cause mortality.
The bigger issue isn’t age in of itself, but years of abuse on the system.
So if working with your doctor, there aren’t any red flags, then you should be good to go, as much as the next person.
Great question. Being in 66 years old and still very active with endurance mountain and gravel cycling I think quite a bit about this.
My personal rambling. I absolutely believe that seeing a physician to get checked out and to control any risk factors for potential heart disease is absolutely the way to go. Several years back, I was racing LEADVILLE and happened to be one of the responders for another rider who had suffered a cardiac arrest during the event. Really scared me. Ultimately, I saw a cardiologist. Discussed all Risk factors, and whether continued participation in high intensity, endurance cycling was ok for me. After screening me and evaluating me, they gave me the greenlight and this huge positive effect on my attitude.
I do know that the Mayo supports high intensity exercise for older athletes. In fact, they go as far as to say we may benefit from it more markedly than those at a younger age.
Regarding atrial fibrillation, I know with endurance Cyclist the risk is higher. Not sure if there is an effective screening tool to predict risk for this outside of potentially measuring left atrial size by echocardiogram. And evaluating other risk factors for the development of atrial fibrillation.
One thing that is pretty well studied is heart rate recovery and correlation with heart disease. I watch HRR pretty closely when I do high intensity efforts. Most studies have participants exercise to high heart rate rates then totally stop. Measure their rate of drop of heart rate. When I do over unders etc. I follow my drop in heart rate pretty closely when I drop off the threshold to “rest” watts. I usually get a drop in heart rate of 50+ at the 2+ minute mark. Pretty happy with this because outside of screening for risk factors this gives me a more dynamic assessment of my cardiac function. Of course cardiologist can order and perform stress testing, etc. that would obviously be more specific.
Sorry about the long response. Like I said 66 and think about this. Currently getting another assessment by cardiology and detailed risk factor testing. Hoping I get another greenlight.
Thank you for the detailed response it’s actually quite helpful. I love riding and challenging myself but after watching some of my buddies deal with significant lifestyle changes it’s making me think. I like the idea of having specific screenings with a doc to help assess the risk. Hopefully, I’ll get the green light as well.
I like to emphasize this, but irrespective of age. If someone starts with endurance sport and asks me what to do, I would recommend getting the heart and related systems checked out, even if they are young. There are enough examples of seemingly healthy and young individuals suffering from undiagnosed heart diseases and (nearly) loosing their life as a consequence. The UCI also requires annual examination for World Tour riders, see Mandatory_Exams_WorldTeams___ProTeams.pdf
After this, I would also recommend to regularly check if the heart is still functioning properly.
Don’t try and hit your max heart rates from a few tears ago. I’ve seen mine drop from low 180’s to high 160’s in the last 15 years partly age related and partly because I’m actually fitter now than I was then.
Check out Crickles.org . Its a website run by a cardiac consultant in London and links to Intervals and does some basic checks on your heart rate and gives a warning if it detects something amiss. Obviously not foolproof but there is some interesting info on the website. This is a screen shot of a ride i did a few days ago
It also give an idea of what he thinks is a sustainable heart rate based on the data . He does give an explanation of how he defines a sustainable heartrate in his blog.
Agree with the comments generally. I’m 74 and have ridden for many years including a period of doing some pro races. The many years are and issue as determined by the various research but a refinement to that is whether the rider took some regular down-time during the years of high level exertion. I have to date never had any issues with AFib, arrhythmia, tachycardia or any other cardiac related matters.
Not as long as there is nothing wrong with your cardio system…imo.
I’m 71 and regularly hit 175+ during Zwift races and last year in an outdoors race I hit 180bpm. I use the Polar H10 monitor.
My normal heart rate is also a bit higher than many but my doctor says all is great.
My normal resting heart rate is currently around 50bpm.
Your cardio system also gets more efficient as it works at higher levels. But you have to start at a lower base to build upon. This, imo, is another benefit of zone 2 and 3 riding…it increases cardio efficiency as well as muscular benefits.
But as in all things physical…be medically fit for the endeavor, understand how any meds impact physical activity, good nutrition and sleep.
