I find that some of the people I coach do increase their Max HR and… sometimes in a period as short as two or three weeks.

Generally, as your fitness improves your Max HR will increase up to your natural hereditary Max HR potential (the maximum HR your body is capable of when you are optimally trained). The other reason that your Max HR increases comes from your body adapting from neurological and physiological changes when you train at high intensities (like interval training). This enables you to perform at a higher intensity from the same fitness level.

By training at higher intensities you release your neurological and physiological restrictions holding you back from riding at your maximum and this enables you to realise your natural hereditary Max HR potential. Think of it as like blowing out the cobwebs.

In most cases and certainly early on in a cyclist's fitness development an increased Max HR is a combination of the two. Structured training improves your fitness which enables you to realise more of your hereditary Max HR potential. This combined with training your body to neurologically go faster (speed training) will enable you to Ride at a higher max HR. However, at some point (when you reach your natural hereditary Max HR potential) your Max HR will peak out and become stable. If you overtrain it will drop a little. Same happens if you back off your training.

Reaching your natural hereditary optimal fitness, or in other words, realising your true fitness potential is a two step process.

• The first step is to build a proper base.
  
• The second step is to specialise your training and add specific high intensity efforts targeted at your choosen disciplines.

In my experience most cyclists have not built a proper base foundation from which to realise their natural hereditary optimal fitness. Or, once they have built a proper base, the lack the knowledge to train properly and take their training beyond the plateau that they have reached.

For more information regarding specific training programs check out our Remote Coaching Program