fitness

FlyClimb – the New Vertical Workout in Town

December 27, 2018 by figur8 Leave a Comment

Now this is a workout I have been waiting for ever since I discovered the existence of rock climbing treadmills. While I may no longer be a rock climber, the lure of the vertical ascent is still in my blood. I have waited with anticipation for the launch of this class and have finally been rewarded.

Flyclimb by Flyproject

FlyClimb by Flyproject is the first vertical workout of its kind in Malaysia. Utilising the VersaClimber machine, this workout boasts more calorie and fat burning than your average workout.

A class estimates a climb from 3000ft – 6500ft, and targets to burn 660 calories per 30 min class.
Flyproject

A typical class runs for 30 minutes but don’t let that deceive you. By the time you’re through, you’ll be glad the class is over. Yes, it is that hard. Even the introductory class. And I didn’t even keep up with the timing because my body just could not do it. It was like speed climbing and I only made it to 1700 ft. I don’t know if that was sweat in my eyes or tears.

What Do You Do in Class?

Speed climb, slow climb, small moves, big moves, arms only, legs only – all in different variations and to the beat of the music. Well, that’s if you can keep up with the beat of the music. There is also a resistance knob that you will increase and decrease to make it harder and easier to move.

What’s Great about FlyClimb?

Aside from the calorie and fat burn, here’s what else you’ll get from this workout:

It is a full body workout so you will work your arms, legs, shoulders, back, chest, abs and butt.
There is no impact! It’s great for those if you have joint issues.
You get cardio and strength training rolled into one.
It’s short and not very sweet at all – get more bang in your workout at a fraction of the time.

A Few Hard Truths

While it is a very tough workout, I think we should be realistic about the calorie burn. Not everyone is going to burn 660 calories in a 30 minute class. There are so many variables that come into play.

How fast you’re moving: if you’re moving at half the pace of the next person, you can’t seriously expect to max out on burning calories.
How hard you’re pushing: if you’re working at a lower resistance, that’s also going to impact your final calorie count.
The heavier you are, the more calories you burn. Sorry feather weights – there are advantages for being on the weightier side.
Mechanical efficiency: different people use more or less energy to move in the same way. It’s just how efficient your muscles are when you move. This is great from a survival perspective because you conserve energy, but not so great when you want to stuff your face after a workout.

You can check out my work out stats as recorded by the Garmin Fenix 3. It was a pretty intense cardio workout, but it didn’t save me from Christmas Dinner.

Where is FlyClimb?

Unfortunately, FlyClimb is only available in the heart of KL city. To get there, you need to head over to Level 5 of The JW Marriott Hotel. While they do have some lovely facilities, it is not terribly convenient to access. Hopefully, Flyproject will open another FlyClimb branch (*cough* Mont’ Kiara *cough* *cough*).

Final Words on FlyClimb

It was hard and I was dying in there. I thought I could climb and I thought I was fit, but this workout really popped my bubble. That said, I am a glutton for punishment. I love the intensity of it and I bask in the post-workout euphoria. I know I want to go back for more.

My goal: 3000 ft.

Heart Rates and Other Measures for Fitness

November 3, 2018 by figur8 Leave a Comment

I’ve been tracking my heart rate during workouts for some time now and it has always troubled me how high it is when I work out.

When #FMR sees my heart rate stats, he gets cross with me because he thinks I’m going to have a heart attack while working out. That’s probably because he keeps reading stuff like this:

It is recommended that you exercise within 55 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate for at least 20 to 30 minutes to get the best results from aerobic exercise. The MHR (roughly calculated as 220 minus your age) is the upper limit of what your cardiovascular system can handle during physical activity. – Active

My Problem with the Recommended Maximum Heart Rate

Based on the premise above, I should be working out to a heart rate of 152 bpm if I am at 85% of my estimated Max heart rate – 161 if I push it to 90%. That’s well below the 200 mark I often record when I do Tribe Boxing or Flycycle. If I tried to stick to 152 bpm, I would hardly be working out at all!

Remember that leisure hike/photoshoot at Sungai Pisang? I recorded a maximum heart rate of 168 walking along the river. The last time I went running with #FMR, I was at 130 bpm just walking out to the road and I hadn’t even started running!

Even if I worked out at 100% capacity, based on the standard calculation for determining maximum heart rate, that would be 179 bpm (yes, if you do the Math, I’m 41). If that really was my maximum heart rate, I should not be able to maintain it for very long before I had to slow down, according to Runner’s World:

The closer you are to your MHR (maximum heart rate) during your workouts and races, the shorter the duration of exercise that you will be able to maintain at that pace. If you can maintain a rate of 160 during your workouts and races, your MHR is well above that.

I have been running with #FMR for some time now and his heart rate looks like my leisure hike at Sungai Pisang compared to mine. The following stats are from a recent run (left: mine, right: #FMR). We ran together almost the entire way, keeping the same run/walk pace until the hill at the end when he took off and I held back because my knee was hurting too much.

According to these stats, my average heart rate was higher than his max heart rate. If he hadn’t raced up the hill, his max heart rate would have been even lower.

My Thoughts on Heart Rate Capacity

I’ve been wondering about this for some time now…

How does #FMR maintain such a low heart rate?
Is there something inefficient about my heart?
What can I do to make my heart more efficient?

Based on my study of two, the following thoughts have been floating around in my head for some time now…

I’ve never been a sporty person. I didn’t really get into fitness until I was an adult. #FMR on the other hand, has been involved in sports for the bulk of his growing years. Given the massive amount of development that occurs in a growing adolescent, it’s hard not to see how all that sporting experience might affect the development of his heart and it’s capacity.

You know the saying – use it or lose it. #FMR worked out a lot in his formative years and his heart would have developed to accommodate those activities. I, on the other hand, was pretty sedentary so my heart rarely had to work very hard. It makes sense that our divergent lifestyles had opposing effects on the development of our hearts.

We know that athletes have larger hearts as a result of their intense physical demands. Is it really such a leap to suggest that physical activity in the formative years would impact the growth of the heart? Of course, there are also genetic differences that we should not over look.

While I was griping about my “crappy” heart and being envious of #FMR’s more superior one, I discovered something else. I can chug quite comfortably at 180 bpm without suffering too much for it. #FMR confessed that he would struggle to maintain that heart rate for long.

So what gives?

According to Bicycling, “Max HR is largely untrainable and determined by genetics—some of us have hearts tuned like humming birds’ while others have the slow-and-steady type.” Right. So I’m the humming bird and #FMR is the slow-and-steady type.

If not by heart rate, then how do we know when we’re working out too hard?

How Hard is Too Hard?

I’m not sure where we got this idea that the fitter you are, the lower your heart rate should be when you’re working out. I don’t even know why there is this insistence that working out at a “high” heart rate is terribly dangerous and something you should never do. How high is “high” anyway? Certainly not that arbitrary 220 minus your age rule. It’s laughable that I can bring my heart rate up to 85% of “maximum” just by walking briskly.

What do we really know? According to Cherie Miner (Sports Medicine Physician) on Bicycling:

The 220 minus your age formula is a rudimentary system—like, “might as well use an abacus as a bike computer” rudimentary. It’s been the standard for years, but there are many variables that can throw off your max HR, like how fit you are, how hot it is, and how much stress you’re under.

The whole obsession with high heart rates when exercising is linked to the idea that working out beyond your maximum heart rate could lead to a heart attack or your heart exploding. I mean, we’ve all read about that guy who dropped dead while exercising. Surely it was because he pushed himself too hard, right? Well, not quite, because there’s this thing called built-in drive called “self-preservation” and it’s a really strong instinct.

At max heart rate, most of us can only last one to two minutes. You would have to be a highly trained athlete to continue for longer. Since I can complete an entire workout at 179 bpm, it cannot be my maximum heart rate. Anyone working at maximum heart rate will find their performance declining quickly. As they put it so succinctly at Bicycling – “years of evolving to survive prevents us from actually killing ourselves”.

So how did that guy drop dead while exercising? Possibly because he had an underlying medical condition. Remember those recommendations to check with the doctor before engaging in any exercise program? That’s why.

Going from couch to 100 is probably not a good idea either. If you’ve been sedentary for a while and suddenly decide you want to get fit, jumping into the middle of the ocean and expecting to swim to the nearest shore is definitely not recommended. It’s the fastest way to injury. If you’re just starting out on the fitness journey, it is advisable to start slow and gradually build yourself up.

When do you need to be worried about your exercise heart rate? If you’ve got pre-existing heart disease or risk factors for heart disease. In both these cases, you should be seeing a doctor before you work out anyway. If you’re part of the aging population, you should also be seeing the doctor yearly for a medical check up. Making sure that everything in your body is functioning well and that you’re good to keep going as you are is always a good plan.

How Hard to Work Out

Now that we can ignore the 220 minus your age rule, it is worth noting a couple of things about working out at maximum heart rate and how hard we should be pushing:

Rather than relying on heart rate numbers, Dean Golich, head performance physiologist for Carmichael Training Systems, prefers the use of personal judgment on how hard we feel we are working out.
Max heart rate workouts should be done sparingly because the ultra-high intensity can lead to injuries, extreme fatigue, and other symptoms of over-training.
Warning signs that you’re over doing it – when you get chest pain, dizziness, shortness of breath, or joint pain that doesn’t go away. Other signs include falling ill frequently, consistently struggling to complete a regular workout, feeling tired and moody after the workout, craving more sugar than usual, or gaining weight even though you’re exercising a lot.

Note to self – endurance workouts from time to time are fine, but they shouldn’t be done too often. In other words, marathon, back-to-back workouts should be kept to a minimum. Additionally, you don’t always have to go hard every time because working out at different heart rate zones is beneficial in different ways.

Heart Rate Measures for Fitness

The most consistent way to determine your fitness levels using your heart rate is by checking:

Resting heart rate – this is your heart rate when you have been lying down, relaxed for 10 to 15 minutes. It can also be measure when you wake up in the morning (not with an alarm clock). Generally, fitter people have lower resting heart rates.
Recovery heart rate – how quickly your heart rate returns to normal after working out is also a good indication of your fitness level. The faster the recovery, the fitter you are.

My Weight Loss Journey

August 31, 2018 by figur8 4 Comments

A number of people have remarked about the weight I’ve lost over the last year so I’ve decided to share the story…

Most of the changes took place over six to seven months from October-November 2017 to April 2018. I should also mentioned that even though this post is labelled “my weight loss journey”, weight loss was not the goal when I first started. Losing the weight was more like a happy “by the way”. My real goal when I started down this path was strength and fitness.

The real title of this post should have been:

My Spartan Journey

It all began when I said I was going to sign up for a Spartan Race. Since it wasn’t a weight loss journey, I don’t have any proper “before” and “after” photos. It was a struggle even to find a full length photo of myself! But I think these will work…

This was me during Chinese New Year 2017 with #fatmanrunning, and I weighed in at 66 kg:

I did not think I was fat or overweight, even though I was a full 8 kg heavier than I was before I got pregnant with G1. I’d even given away all my pre-pregnant clothes because I was sure I would never be able to fit into them again.

While I could blame my boys for the weight gain, I knew that some of it was also the result of age and a slowing metabolism. I learned that the hard way when an outfit I’d been saving for Chinese New Year was too tight when I tried to put it on. At a certain point in your life, you’ll discover that you can no longer sloth in front of the idiot box doing bicep curls with a block of chocolate and not have to pay for it in some way.

I digress… The photo above was taken at the start of 2017, but the real weight loss didn’t start until the end of the year. So here’s a more accurate “before” photo which actually looks more flattering. It was taken in November 2017 when I weighed about 65 kg. That’s right about the time we decided we were going to do the Spartan Race.

Fast forward six months of intense Spartan Training that involved stuff like:

Flycycle aka spinning class
Bootybarre – a pilates ballet fusion class
Flyfight aka boxing class
HIIT workout
Spartan Workshops at Fitness First – First, Second, Fourth (I missed the third one because I was out of town)
Spartan Training at The Playground
Pilates Reformer at Zenith
Weekend Running

And this was me on Spartan Race Day in April (left), weighing in at 58 kg. I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight (right) – something I never thought I would see again for the rest of my life. Admittedly, I am dressed in black which is always a flattering colour so I probably look slimmer than I really was.

Although it wasn’t my intention to lose weight for the Spartan Race, I won’t deny that it was a pleasant side effect of my training. As such, I didn’t know if I could keep the weight off once I stopped training. I’ve always believed that any weight loss program should be a lifestyle change. You cannot expect to keep the weight off if you plan to return to the lifestyle you had before you lost the weight.

Since completing the Spartan Race, I have dialed down my workout intensity and been naughty (very naughty sometimes) about the food I’ve eaten. It has been a bit of a relief to my body to slow things down because the Spartan training was intense. Age will not suffer the foolishness of youth and we pay the price for pushing too hard. I should add that although I no longer work out as intensely as I did during my Spartan training days, I still work out much more than I did when I took that picture during Chinese New Year.

I do not have year long stats yet, but this is me in August, four months after the Spartan Race:

Again, the dress is black – my favourite colour for hiding body flaws – making me look better than I really do. I can’t show you what I really look like, because I feel too self-conscious to take photos in my underwear for public display. That’s probably a good thing since I don’t have any abs to show off. Well, maybe if I suck in my stomach after waking up in the morning and being dehydrated all night long then perhaps there might be some visible shadows.

You’ll just have to take my word for it that I have maintained my weight for at least four months at about 58 to 59 kg. Okay, okay, there was some indiscretion while I was in Perth where I displayed a complete lack of self-control when it came to eating. My only saving grace was the fact that we walked a lot and I ran, like once. Things returned to normal when I got back home – thank goodness for that. I don’t think I can live in Australia – it’s far too dangerous for me. I’ll carve out a path with my mouth through every dessert joint in town and end up as round as a ball.

Digressing again… Will I be able to maintain this weight? Ask me next year. In the meantime, I’ll hang on to my old clothes in case I should need them in the future.

Okay, let’s move on to the part you really want to know about…

How Do You Lose Weight?

In The First 20 Minutes, Gretchen Reynolds said weight loss is 20% exercise and 80% diet. What does this mean? Women’s Health covers it in greater detail, but in a nutshell, it is essentially this:

In order to achieve weight loss, you need to burn more energy than you consume.
That means decreasing your energy intake (i.e. eat less) and/or increasing your energy expenditure (i.e. working out more).
To lose one pound, you need an energy deficit of 3500 calories, which can occur through exercise, diet or a combination.
3500 calories is a lot to burn if you’re relying on exercise alone. Since it is hard to burn calories, the easier solution is to cut them out through your diet.

And that’s why weight loss is 80% diet and only 20% exercise. Unless you’re an elite athlete, you’ll never workout enough to burn it all away.

How I Did It – The Diet

My diet is crap and I have almost zero motivation to fix it. If you give me a diet plan, I’ll ignore it. Unless it contains food I want to eat on it. Unfortunately, most of the food I like to eat aren’t exactly high on the list for a weight loss diet. That’s probably why I didn’t even think about losing weight when I started training for Spartan. I knew that I would never correct my diet so what was the point? I did, however, make a few changes to my diet. I snacked less, for instance:

Instead of chocolate after every meal, I would have it only after dinner.
Instead of ice cream several times a week, I ate it only once a week.
If I had ice cream, I wouldn’t have the chocolate, and vice versa.
Instead of eight pieces of chocolate in one sitting, I would cut it back to four.
If I was hungry and I had already consumed my unhealthy snacks, I would eat fruit.

Out of the foods I enjoyed eating, I tried to select the more satiating options so I wouldn’t feel hungry too quickly after. I also controlled my food intake in the sense that if I had a big lunch, I’d have a smaller dinner. I didn’t count calories or force myself to eat stuff I didn’t like. There was no paleo diet, low carb diet, or any of those diets recommended for weight loss, because, let’s just be honest, I’d never be able to stick to it.

As far as a caloric restriction through diet went, I definitely reduced the calories. Did it contribute 80% of my caloric deficit? I highly doubt it. Food is my weakness, but even without the strict discipline in my diet, I still lost weight so take heart.

One point I must make is that fruits aren’t bad for losing weight. I always hear about how fattening bananas are but they were part of my daily staples. I love fruits and I would eat them even if you told me they were bad for me. I had at least one banana almost every day. I ate apples, oranges, papayas, grapes, and avocados on most other days. People talk about how much sugar there is in fruits. My rationale is that eating fruit has got to be better than eating a bar of chocolate. Besides, I also knew that if I went hungry, I would end up overeating at my next meal.

The Workout

The most significant change to my lifestyle was the exercise. I trained five days a week and it was not uncommon for me to have back to back workouts. For instance:

pilates reformer, flycycle (spinning), and bootybarre (pilates-ballet exercise)
brisk walking and flycycle
flycycle and flyfight (boxing class)
spartan training (The Playground) and flyfight

…you get the drift.

Based on my Garmin Fenix 3 stats, my active calorie expenditure on the days that I trained would average at about 1000 calories a day. In comparison to the days when I don’t train, my active calorie expenditure would range from about 200 to 300 calories on average. That’s a burn of at least an extra 700 calories, five days a week, bringing me up to the 3500 calories I needed to lose my pound of weight.

So there you go… that’s how I lost the weight – through an insane workout regime and a modest dietary restriction.

Running Fitness – Tracking Progress

June 15, 2018 by figur8 Leave a Comment

It is important to stop every now and then to take note of progress because it inspires us to keep going. This is especially so when the journey feels pointless.

I never used to record my workouts because I didn’t see the point of it, but ever since I started using activity trackers, I have amassed quite a significant amount of data that has become quite handy. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to track my progress so perhaps that is another reason why recording your workout stats on an activity tracker can be useful.

Running Fitness Progress

Last Sunday was my second run back on the road since DH, a.k.a. #fatmanrunning, had his foot injury. We ran an “easy 10km” and for once my Garmin Fenix didn’t tell me I needed to rest for the next three days. After every workout, the Garmin Fenix will tell you how many hours you need to rest to recover from the workout you just did. I usually get some ridiculous recovery period even after 30 minutes of running.

Surprised by this, I decided to check my past running stats to check my fitness progress. I found a comparable run that I did back in February – same route and similar speed/run time. February’s run stats are on the left and last Sunday’s are on the right.

My heart rate profile was lower – I spent 15 minutes more time in Zones 1 to 3 and reduced my time in Zone 4 significantly. This was in spite of running up the final slope at the end which I walked during the February run. This is the same slope that made me want to throw up when I first tried to run its distance.

I have made progress in my fitness journey – woohoo! Maybe I really do have fitness genes after all. I may not be able to run a sub 60 minute 10km – yet, but at least I know I haven’t been training in vain.

By the way, I said “running fitness” because I don’t know if this translates to my other cardiovascular workouts, like spinning or boxing. Since the routine in those classes often vary, it is harder to do a side-by-side comparison for those workouts.

Fitness Training and Aerobic Improvements

May 18, 2018 by Shen-Li Leave a Comment

Over the last year, I have logged a significant amount of time training for events. I’d like to think that my fitness has improved since I first started. I wouldn’t know for sure because I didn’t take a fitness test before I got on this journey. Based on my gut-feel, I don’t think I have made as much progress as I should have given how hard I have been training.

I was pondering on this when I stumbled across a reference to a study on the link between our genetics and the effect of training on our aerobic capacity while reading the book Top Dog. In the study, 473 volunteers went through 5 months of vigorous training to see how much their aerobic capacity improved. These were the results:

The top 24 volunteers improved by as much as 40%. These were the individuals who had the potential to become elite athletes with the right training.
The bottom 24 volunteers improved by only 4%. In other words, exercise did nothing for them. Their bodies just didn’t learn to adapt and it wasn’t because they were lazy or that they weren’t training hard.

Bouchard, the lead researcher, found that these differences were due to 21 genes. The volunteers with 19 or more or these genes were high responders to exercise and they improved their aerobic capacity by an average of 26%. The volunteers with 9 or less of these genes were low responders. They only improved by an average of 9%. It would seem that not everybody gets more fit no matter how much exercise they are forced to do.

Since I don’t have any means of knowing just how much I have improved, I can’t say for certain that I belong in the group for the high or low responders to exercise. All I can do is make a guess at it.

One week after the Spartan Race, I took a basic fitness test. Yes, I know, it is not exactly a definitive fitness test, but it does give me some results to monitor. These were my results:

Step Test: 90 beats per minute.
Balance Test: 42 seconds.
Flexibility Test: Able to reach heels.
Strength Test: 37 sit ups.

Now that I have some baseline measurements, I can repeat the test in the next 6 months to a year to see if my fitness has increased or decreased. In the meantime, according to the chart for the 3 minute step test, my cardiovascular fitness falls under “good” for my age (assuming I did the test correctly). Certainly not “elite” category but it does suggest that I might have some of those exercise response genes. Maybe all this training isn’t all in vain. What a relief to know.

Fitness tests aside, I do feel stronger and fitter coming out of my Spartan Training. I can certainly do things I couldn’t before and running doesn’t totally destroy me the way it used it. Now that’s got to be something.

IJM Duo Highway Challenge 2018 – Part 1

May 4, 2018 by Shen-Li Leave a Comment

Back on the road after the Spartan Sprint in Semenyih with the IJM Duo Highway Challenge.

After all the training I’ve been doing for the Spartan race, I am pleased to note that I have come back to my regular activities feeling a lot stronger. I still remember when an “easy” 10km on a Sunday would knock me out for the rest of the day. Now I can carry on and my day is not wasted, lying in a coma on the couch. While I must admit that I did take it easier than I did for the SCKLM 10km, I still felt pretty good most of the way. Pity my heart stats disagree…

…which leads me to something that has been bothering me for a while. Despite the fact that I have been training quite consistently and actively for the past year, my heart doesn’t seem to have acclimatised to any of it. Every cardio workout still sends my heart rate rocketing to the 180s and up to 200 if I push it.

DH keeps telling me to take it easy because he’s worried I might kick the bucket. Yeah, he’s what we call “kiasi” (read: “afraid to die”). Except in this case, he’s afraid for me, and he’s infected me with his fear. So every time my heart races, I wonder if I should be slowing down.

The thing is, I don’t feel like I’m overly taxing myself. Well, okay, 200 is hard, but I can run at 180 without feeling like my heart is going explode. So is that a good thing or a bad thing? But more importantly, if my heart rate is so high, how do I improve my running speed without pushing my heart rate off the charts?

Then there’s DH who can run at the same pace as me and hover around a heart rate of 130 to 140, give or take. He’s also the one with a resting heart rate of 40, while mine hovers on 70 and refuses to go any lower. DH is the guy who smoked nearly half his life at two packs a day during his highest consumption while the most I ever did was passive smoke!

There’s something else I’ve been wondering about… DH has been active in competitive sports all through his schooling life. The only physical thing I ever did growing up was PE and that was because it was compulsory. I’ve read a lot about how neural pathways get hardwired in the brain through repeated use. It is especially sensitive while a child is growing up, all the way through the teenage years, even. If that’s what happens in the brain, then why not the heart? Would cardiovascular training have a bigger impact on the heart when our bodies are still growing? Well, it’s all academic now anyway since I can’t exactly go back to change the past.

The real question that’s been hovering in my mind is whether this is bad for me – working out at such a high heart rate?

Most websites refer back to the old “220 – Your Age” rule when calculating max heart rate which hasn’t exactly been helpful. A number of other people seem to agree that this doesn’t work for a lot of people. So what are the alternatives?

Dr. Church says that except for elite athletes heart rate monitoring is not very useful and can distract from finding an exercise program you enjoy and will stick to. “Everyone kind of has their own natural pace,” Dr. Church says. “If you like to work a little harder, then work harder. If you like to work less hard but a little longer, then do that. Find what works for you.” – New York Times

In other words, we’re all different, listen to your body and work to what you feel comfortable with. That said, it’s probably still a good idea to get your doctor’s okay before your run ahead with that plan:

While there is nothing inherently dangerous in or wrong with reaching one’s maximum heart rate during workouts (and this certainly is a workout), and some people actually routinely reach or exceed their maximum (the formula is flawed in that it is designed as a “one-size-fits-all” measurement), it’s never a bad idea to have at least a cursory cardiac workup and clearance from your doctor before embarking on a serious fitness or athletic regimen. – Doctors Lounge

Built Lean also agrees that the max heart rate formula doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. They noted the following points which I found to be noteworthy:

Your max heart rate is the maximum heart rate that you can attain that is based on your genetics.
A high, or low max heart rate does not predict athletic performance, or even fitness level.
The max heart rate calculation formula is a great way to find your ball park figure for most people, but it doesn’t work for everyone because some of us fall on the extremities of the bell curve.

What are some other ways to figure out your max heart rate?

If you are in pretty good shape, you can run on the treadmill for 15-20 minutes, than at the end really sprint hard for 1-2 minutes. Whatever your heart rate shows at the end of that sprint, add another 5 beats per minute and that’s a pretty decent estimate of your max heart rate.
Another even easier way is if you are breathing extremely hard during a workout so that you can’t even talk at all, you’re probably within 5-10 bpm of your max heart rate.

I guess that’s what I’ll be doing to check my max heart rate…