Minimal Agreement About Maximum Heart Rates

The New York Times' Gina Kolata confesses that she suffers from maximum heart rate envy of her husband, even though her husband will not disclose his maximum heart rate.  Geezer confesses that he has always been confused by notions of maximum heart rate and target heart rate (calculated by the Karvonen method or the  Zoladz method?) and wonders if all of that math is worth the effort. Alas, Kolata reports that many others are also math-averse, or just skeptical of the value things like the "notoriously inaccurate" formula for determining your maximum rate: 220 minus your age.  One problem with heart rate monitoring, Olympic marathon coach Kevin Hanson tells the Times, is that it can play mind games with you: if your heart rate is very high, you may worry yourself to a slower pace when a slower pace is not necessarily beneficial. Another problem is that monitoring heart rates can make athletes anxious, and that anxiety will further increase heart rate. So should we monitor, or not? In the end, this piece suggests that it doesn't really matter, as long as we don't worry about it. Read more in the New York Times.