Low max HR compared to running?

[luckylindy]

Lately I've been doing some faster pieces on the erg, and have noticed that I cannot get my HR anywhere close to when I ran. For example, my last run in October I ran 5k at a moderate pace and my HR stayed around 165, and during sprints it hits 185-190. On the erg, when I'm really pushing myself my heart will hit 145 or so, and was around 125-130 for my fastest 5k to date. I don't think I've ever had it above 160 on the erg, and that was during my last 500m trial back in November.

Is this common, or at least common for people starting a new activity (I started rowing in October/November)?

[jamesg]

This means you can go a lot faster, i.e. work harder. To do so needs technique - which mostly means full length strokes from well forward in a strong catch position, then moving very fast off the stretcher. The necessary aim is to get a lot of work done by the legs in the first half of the stroke; what's not done there can't be recovered later on.

You can study this by doing backstop drills (for warm-up), then increasing to full length and observing your Watt and Rating trends. It's impossible to over-reach on the fixed erg, the chainguard gets in the way and in any case we lose about 30cm just catching up with the flywheel. The actual catch must happen when the handle is over your feet, so that the legs still have plenty of travel where they can do their work and so push your HR up.

[hjs]

Lately I've been doing some faster pieces on the erg, and have noticed that I cannot get my HR anywhere close to when I ran. For example, my last run in October I ran 5k at a moderate pace and my HR stayed around 165, and during sprints it hits 185-190. On the erg, when I'm really pushing myself my heart will hit 145 or so, and was around 125-130 for my fastest 5k to date. I don't think I've ever had it above 160 on the erg, and that was during my last 500m trial back in November.

Is this common, or at least common for people starting a new activity (I started rowing in October/November)?

No its not, if you really go for it, you fall off the erg and are gasping for air the first minute after the row, if you do this your heartrare will be a lot harder. It proberly is a matter of technique, using a to soft a stroke.

[jliddil]

Lately I've been doing some faster pieces on the erg, and have noticed that I cannot get my HR anywhere close to when I ran. For example, my last run in October I ran 5k at a moderate pace and my HR stayed around 165, and during sprints it hits 185-190. On the erg, when I'm really pushing myself my heart will hit 145 or so, and was around 125-130 for my fastest 5k to date. I don't think I've ever had it above 160 on the erg, and that was during my last 500m trial back in November.

Is this common, or at least common for people starting a new activity (I started rowing in October/November)?

Your MHR is dependent on the type of exercise. See Heart Rate Training (http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Rate-Traini ... 988&sr=8-3)

[Byron Drachman]

What JD said. It also depends on body position. My max heart rate is also much higher when I am running or doing a stepper compared to rowing.

[luckylindy]

Lately I've been doing some faster pieces on the erg, and have noticed that I cannot get my HR anywhere close to when I ran. For example, my last run in October I ran 5k at a moderate pace and my HR stayed around 165, and during sprints it hits 185-190. On the erg, when I'm really pushing myself my heart will hit 145 or so, and was around 125-130 for my fastest 5k to date. I don't think I've ever had it above 160 on the erg, and that was during my last 500m trial back in November.

Is this common, or at least common for people starting a new activity (I started rowing in October/November)?

No its not, if you really go for it, you fall off the erg and are gasping for air the first minute after the row, if you do this your heartrare will be a lot harder. It proberly is a matter of technique, using a to soft a stroke.

This is what was strange. During my fastest 500m trial, I was on the ground barely able to breathe ... it was far worse than anything I had experienced since running the 800m in high school track (definitely breathing harder than track sprints where my HR regularly is above 185). However, my HR was still around 150 even though my max is somewhere around 190 (according to running). I felt like it was an all out effort, I breathed and could barely move like it was an all out effort, but my HR was still relatively low.

[jliddil]

Again your max heart rate for any given exercise is dependent on that exercise. And your genetics play a role in how high your heart rate will go doing a given activity. And as discussed in the Heart Rate Training book people need to learn how to reach their max rate. Often people never really reach their max since they don't push to their true limit. And as the book points out you have to get used to what this feels like before you can really push to that point. It is also pointed out this can be dangerous.

[hjs]

Lately I've been doing some faster pieces on the erg, and have noticed that I cannot get my HR anywhere close to when I ran. For example, my last run in October I ran 5k at a moderate pace and my HR stayed around 165, and during sprints it hits 185-190. On the erg, when I'm really pushing myself my heart will hit 145 or so, and was around 125-130 for my fastest 5k to date. I don't think I've ever had it above 160 on the erg, and that was during my last 500m trial back in November.

Is this common, or at least common for people starting a new activity (I started rowing in October/November)?

No its not, if you really go for it, you fall off the erg and are gasping for air the first minute after the row, if you do this your heartrare will be a lot harder. It proberly is a matter of technique, using a to soft a stroke.

This is what was strange. During my fastest 500m trial, I was on the ground barely able to breathe ... it was far worse than anything I had experienced since running the 800m in high school track (definitely breathing harder than track sprints where my HR regularly is above 185). However, my HR was still around 150 even though my max is somewhere around 190 (according to running). I felt like it was an all out effort, I breathed and could barely move like it was an all out effort, but my HR was still relatively low.

First a 500 meter is not the best suited for seeing a very high HF, certainly not very well anaerobicly trained people will have trouble getting there rate up. Better is a 15 minutes hard effort ended with a spring untill exhaustion. Very tough but to the max out off our body we have to push it to the max.

The low hf sounds really really strange, nomatter what excercise you are doing if you can reach a max of 190, 150 is low for everything, you should hardly breath faster at rate 150. You should get a higher rate on everything you do if you really push yourselve. From here I have no explanation. Did you look right after the 500, the arte very quickly fals back after such an exercise ceratinly when it is not 100%.

HF is not so much exercise dependent but depends on what exercise your body is used best, a runner gets his hf high at running, a cyclist at cycling etc. Every movement uses our muscle and body in a certain way, this way it is trained best and can use the most oxigen, doing sports we are not so well trained for will give locale problems, some muscle are fatiqued before the heart really works at his max, thus the not so high rate.

The often heard thing that being more vertical will give a higher HF is something I think is something that may be not true, why?, yes it cost energy to pump our blood against gravity, so that alone is work for ou heart, but why should our heart not use that capacity in a more horrizontal position? I think that top swimmers can reach just as or at least a close to the max Hf other sports get.
Of course some excercises use so many muscle that everybody will see a high rate doing that, running for example, although swimmners and cyclers who don't run much will have troube, there legs are simply not trained for running.