How were the maximum pulse rate vs. age charts determined? Can these limits be safely increased through training? Is there a way to determine one’s own safe maximum?
Ignore the charts, everyone is different. If you have stayed in shape, your MHR will drop very little with age.
I’m 50 and my MHR is still 189 vs. a predicted 170.
There’s a number of self tests, all painfully brutal. 
Race a 5K with an all out kick over the last 800 meters.
Run 2X800 on a track with one minute recovery between. Run the first very hard but controlled then the second one all out.
Use a heart rate monitor. Your HR will drop too quickly for accurate results if you try to take it by hand, doubly so as you’re probably throwing up. 
No, you can’t increase your MHR.
In theory 220bpm (beats per minute) is the maximum any person’s heart can beat and still effectively pump blood.
Now obviously they are referring to a person with no major health problems. A person with heart issues isn’t going to have a 220bpm.
You want a “safe zone” and that is determained by taking your age and subtracting out your age. So a 50 year old would be 220-50 or 170bpm
This is a 50 year old’s maximum heart rate. A 50 year old should NEVER excede 170bpm.
A “training range” is between 65% and 85% of your personal maximum. So a 50 year old would shoot for
65% of 170bpm or 111bpm
85% of 170bpm or 145bpm
The range would be 111 to 145bpm
Now can one increase this? Yes certainly, but only carefully. Olympic caliber athletes shoot for 95% of their personal maximum.
The better fit you become the more you have to push youself.
The problem is people overdo it. Think about this, if an athlete who is going to compete in the Olympics is pushing 95%, do you think YOU can do this?
It’s possible but pretty unlikely you’re going to be anywhere NEAR as in shape as an athlete training for the Olympics, so you’re only gonna wind up hurting yourself and in reality, you aren’t gaining any benefit from it.
Pushing yourself from 85% to 95% is only gonna make minor gains. If you’re in the Olympics those minor gains can mean the difference between 5th place and a gold medal.
For the average Joe, it means nothing. Stick at 85%.
What is much better is change your routine. If you’re getting 85% on a treadmill, change to spinning classes. Then change to a stair stepper then swimming. Then change around every month.
What’s going to happen if someone exceeds the “safe” range? Cardiac arrest? Passing out? Presumably it would make a difference if it was for a few seconds or minutes or if it is done frequently. Or would it? If the 2 - 3 times a week exerciser regularly spends several minutes above the alleged safe range, is he actually doing himself more harm than good?
Hmmm. I go WAY above the charted range. Basically following the “you shouldn’t get so out of breath you can’t talk to somebody” measure, I’m surprised to find the exercise machine telling me my heart rate is getting into the 170s by the end of half an hour. If I keep down to the chart range for a 50 year old, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything. I asked my doctor about it, and he told me that if:
A) You don’t feel dizzy or sick, and
B) It doesn’t suddenly spike, but climbs steadily over the workout.
don’t worry about it. I do a half hour on an elliptical 3 times a week, with the tension set as high as I can manage for that entire time, rather than using one of those variable programs, running it at about 60-70 rpm the whole time. Currently, that’s “level 13”, whatever that might mean. It also tells me I’ve burned a bit over 500 calories after half an hour, based on a weight of 180 lbs. I knock the tension off a notch, and back down to about 50 rpm for a couple minutes at the end, to “cool down” and get my heart rate back down a bit before I stop. It goes down maybe 20 bpm, and I have difficulty not pedalling faster during that time.
I’ve known about the 220-agex85% formula for years, back when I was a marathon runner and raced in 5K and 10K races.
I quit running when my knees gave me trouble, and took up hiking long distances and mountain climbing, often humping a 40 lb pack when I weighed 140 lbs, climbing 14,000+ mountains. .
So, I have exercised strenuously all my life. I am now 83, so according to the formula, my max is 137 and 85% of that is 116. Age has forced me to climb the local mountain only every day, but I can still get my rate close to 135 when I push hard on the steep parts.
Just goes to show what others have posted: everybody is difference, and hard training
helps.
I think everyone is different, and I think your resting heart rate plays a big role too. My resting heart rate is on the high side of normal (high 90s).
My max heart rate is about 190~, so going to 70% of that is only about 133bpm. But when I exercise with my heart rate in the 130-150 bpm range I don’t really notice any cardio benefits.
When I do high intensity interval training I can get my rate to 170, which is about 90% of my max. Doing that causes my resting heart rate to drop by 10-20 points over the course of a month. If I do HIIT I can get mine down to the low 80s. I don’t know what effect it has on cholesterol, and I can’t remember if my BP was affected. But I have to get my HR high to reduce my resting pulse.
Now that is very interesting.
I forgot to add above that my resting rate has always been low, as has been my BP, but during the 20 running years and since, it was around 47-50. Now that I have a pacemaker, however, set at 50, it runs 50-52. They originally set it at the usual rate of 60, but I told them that was too high for me,so they reset it to 50.
Another factor of conditioning is how quickly your heart rate drops after strenuous workouts. When I stop climbing a a 120-130 rate, within a couple of minutes it drops back to the low 80s. That is supposed to be a good sign. I hope so.