With turbo season well and truly upon us I have been looking at my heart rate and training zones. I have come across something which is new to me (probably been around for years though) called Heart Rate Reserve and the use of the Karvonen formula, which is HRR = HR (max) - HR (rest).
If I assume a maximum heart rate of 160 and a resting heart rate of 50 I get the following table:
| Percentage | HRmax | HRR |
Zone 1 | 50% - 60% | 80 - 96 | 105 - 116 |
Zone 2 | 60% - 70% | 96 - 112 | 116 - 127 |
Zone 3 | 70% - 80% | 112 - 128 | 127 - 138 |
Zone 4 | 80% - 90% | 128 - 144 | 138 - 149 |
Zone 5 | 90% - 100% | 144 - 160 | 149 - 160 |
Sweet Spot | 75% - 85% | 120 - 136 | 132 - 143 |
I don't have a power meter. A lot of my workouts are at, or around, sweetspot but with the two methods of calculating this being so different, I am not sure which to use.
So question is, do people use straight HRmax calculations or HRR? Or is the something else that can muddy the waters even more?