Athletes' bodies become conditioned to training and have to work harder and longer in order to reach their max heart rate. Athletes spend years training for their given sport and are in top shape or condition. On the other hand, unfit individuals are less conditioned and can easily reach their maximum heart rate.
Conditioning
Conditioning trains your body to perform the same exercise over and over with greater ability, speed, strength and power. Fit individuals, such as athletes can deliver a greater volume of blood to their working muscles more efficiently than someone untrained. This is the primary reason why athletes must exercise harder and longer to reach their maximum heart rate, according to Rebecca Kenzakowski and Monica Wagner in "Heart Rate and Physical Fitness." Trained individuals' heart rates rise less rapidly and recover faster during the start up of exercise. Once exercise commences, the heart rate initially goes up, after the first one to two minutes, the trained individual's heart rate goes down.
Adaptations
Athletes' bodies have gone through a series of adaptations in response to continued training. Their heart rate decreases because their hearts can store larger volumes of blood before pumping this blood throughout the body, this is called increased stroke volume and cardiac output according to Grfx.cstv.com. Blood volume also increases along with the number of red blood cells that circulate through the athlete's body. The athlete's body delivers oxygen to working muscles faster and more efficiently allowing for a greater workload or workout before tiring or reaching maximum heart rate.
Progressive Overload
Progressive overload is continuously changing your training regimen to promote a higher level of physical conditioning. You may either train longer, more frequently or do more work in a shorter amount of time, which is called intensity as stated by SportFitnessAdvisor.com. By continuously doing more work by either training longer, harder or more frequently you challenge your body's ability to go the extra mile. This leads to a greater fitness level with your body being able to handle a greater volume of training in comparison to when you first started training.
Interval Training
Interval training is a training method that employs short bursts of exercise followed by a rest period. The short bursts of exercise can last 20 seconds to one minute in duration with the rest interval lasting 10 seconds, for individuals that are highly trained to one to two minutes for beginners and intermediately trained individuals. This training method may result in reaching 85 percent or your maximum heart rate, necessitating rest intervals in order for you to continue training, according to Grfx.cstv.com.
Beyond the Heart Rate
Whether you are training for the Tour de France or just to have a more fit body, you will need to continuously change your workouts. Your body adapts to the intensity of workouts. You can't reap the rewards of hard training if you don't push your body beyond its limits and factor in recovery time so you can push your body on the next workout.
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