Heart Rate Monitoring During Exercise – Karvonen Formula

My Resting HR as of Summer (Aug 2012) is around 49-59 BPM upon waking most mornings according to my portable finger Pulse-Oximeter SM-110. My Polar FT1 HR Monitor reads about 2-3 beats higher. But it’s probably safe to assume that my normal resting HR is an average of 55 beats per minute. It’s probably around 70 BPM while sitting around. Around 80ish while standing. I got it up to 172 BPM today during a 1 minute interval on my Schwinn Airdyne. I could have probably gone 10 beats higher going “all-out” but i was pretty uncormforable at that HR, which should be a good estimate of my current “anaerobic threshold/lactate threshold). According to my age, my estimated “maximum heart rate” is 182/183 (220 – 37/38 years of age) I will now use these numbers to estimate my heart rate zones using the Karvonen Formula. (Using this great website: http://www.briancalkins.com/HeartRate.htm)

My 60% of HRM according to the Karvonen Formula is and average of: 131 (129-133 range = RHR of 50-60 BPM). This is the lower range of HR. Or what i will rest down to but not below during exercise. Below is a list of target HR ranges for an average of my resting heart rate, which i set at around 55 BPM…