Hello -
I’m on the GPP/Endurance template, running on a treadmill with a heart rate monitor for my cardio. The RPE tables in the template refer to percentage of maximum heart rates; for example, an RPE 6 is 60% of max heart rate. I have seen online two different ways of calculating a target heart rate based on the maximum heart rate.
The simple way is to take a straight percentage of max heart rate based on age. I’m 41, so my max HR is 220-41=179, and 60% of that is 104.
The more sophisticated way is to calculate the “heart rate reserve,” the difference between the maximum and the resting heart rate, take a percentage of that number and add it to the resting heart rate. My resting heart rate is 76, so my heart rate reserve is 103, 60% of 103 is 62, and adding that to my resting heart rate of 76 totals 138, which is a fairly significant difference from the 104 BPM target calculated the other way.
I was wondering which method you’d recommend I use (or if I’m overthinking things…
Thanks!