Heart rate in sports – What should be considered?

Under stress – be it physical or mental – the heart rate increases. This is also true for conscious physical activity in the context of sports. The extreme maximum that can be achieved is the so-called maximum heart rate.

However, it should not be considered a training guideline for everyone. Only for professional athletes it is recommended to stimulate their body rarely and always only briefly to the highest heart rate. If you want to train, but are not a competitive athlete, you should use the so-called training heart rate, which is significantly lower than the maximum heart rate.

The training pulse is considered the ideal target value for improving fitness and thus strengthening the cardiovascular system. It varies from person to person – depending on age, training condition, weight, gender, genetics and much more. Untrained people can find a clue in the often quoted rule of thumb “180 minus age”. For more ambitious amateur athletes, individual performance diagnostics are recommended, where the optimal training pulse for different levels of training can be determined. In addition to sports physicians, many fitness studios now also offer this type of performance diagnostics

Training and heart rate

In a workout, the heart rate indicates the degree of physical exertion. The higher the heart rate per minute, the higher the load on the athlete. In order to train in the right heart rate range during an endurance training, it is advisable to train with the help of a heart rate monitor and thus ensure that you are always in the optimal load range.

It should be noted, however, that for the calculation of the maximum heart rate the formula has only a general validity. 220 minus age reflects only an approximate value, which does not have to be individually applicable. The control of a pulse watch for endurance training is a proven means of training control, whereby one should be aware that the maximum heart rate can only be determined in an endurance test.

In addition, you should not only be guided by the heart rate monitor, but you should also let your body feeling flow into the training control. The following formulas serve to determine the optimal heart rate for athletes with different levels of training and different forms of endurance training. Each formula, regarding a HF-calculation, serves however only as a rough orientation and is not always correct in practice.

1) When determining the desired training pulse rate, age must first be taken into account. The age has to be calculated in relation to the desired cardiovascular load as follows (according to Stauzenberg): Maximum heart rate: 220HF/min – LA80%-utilization: 200HF/min – LA70%-utilization: 180HF/min – LA50-60%-utilization: 160HF/min – LA 2. The carvone formula also takes into account the individual requirements (maximum heart rate and resting heart rate) of the respective athlete: THF = RestingHF + (HFmax – RestingHF) x Int.

% The intensity is to be selected in relation to the desired training goal (see table). However, endurance athletes should not only concentrate on fixed values. For example, training in the anaerobic range for a short period of time is possible without any problems during targeted fat burning. The human body adapts better to changing load intensities.