I think it's fairly normal to have a lower range for the bike. I can hit 180 bpm in a 5k effort on the run but 165-170 seems super hard on the bike.

just curious if you'd consider yourself more a runner or cyclist?

Cyclist. Never raced. I have been doing it the longest, it is my favorite portion (not on the trainer though) and my splits are the best of the three.

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It takes a while in the workout to get into higher heart rate zones. That's kind of the nice thing about power, it's an immediate measurement of your effort. Heart rate has a lag. It would almost be better to go off perceived exertion unless you are doing a zone 1-2 workout. Just use heart rate after the workout to understand your overall effort.

I'm curious to see what others say

I've noticed the same thing, I think it's expected given different physiology of bike vs run.

When I run 5k/VO2max pace, at M40-45, I routinely hit HR of 155-164. I race 5ks at 160+ the entire way, up to 177 by the end.

In Trainerroad on my trainer though, with a powerful fan blasting at me to keep me cool in an already cold garage (feels freezing to you if you are not warmed up!), my HR during the hardest 3 minute @ 130% FTP Vo2max interval (those are really, really hard) barely hits 153. And I feel like I'm totally dying/dead by the end. My HR for most of the VO2max intervals is 145-155 on the bike, which isn't even Z4 for me for running.

I suspect it's for several reasons-

1. Running uses arms and is weight bearing, so HR demands can rocket up faster. (This is def real - you can see this in full force by using an elliptical machine hard, first without arms at all, then by grabbing the handles and keeping the arm cadence up. I've been actually amazed how high my elliptical with arms HR is at despite going at only 'moderate' effort for me.)

2. Cycling blasts the legs with more load compared to running. In running races of any non-sprint, it's almost never a matter of not being able to push harder with your legs on the flats and hills, it's a leg turnover and cardio issue. Even though running has more pounding, it doesn't have the sustained muscle pushes needed to put up big watts on the bike. So on bike intervals, the legs are often what are screaming at you to quit, even if it's hard to tell. FOr sure though, since I can sustain 160HR on the run for 19 mins, it's unlikely that 160HR in a 3' VO2max bike interval is limiting me - it's the huge lactate pumping out by the bike legs from working so hard in combination with that high HR that makes it shut down so fast.

3. Training on a trainer indoors also often means you don't have the same motivation to 'kill it' on gutbusting intervals as you might in an outdoor bike chase/race or hammering to the tail end of a hill outdoors. Even with something like Trainerroad+Kickr that feeds you the power, I'll bet we could give a few % more had we been doing those same intervals outdoors in a beautiful place with other racers to push us along.

Do you have same issue outside - meaning is it a trainer issue, or bike issue?

I used to feel I couldn’t get a strong effort in on the trainer. Now I got a direct drive trainer, and use zwift religiously for racing - and my all time HR highs for >1min efforts are almost the same indoor / outdoor.

Don't know. Won't be able to ride outside here for a month or two.

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"I keep hoping for you to use your superior intellect to be less insufferable. Sadly, you continue to disappoint." - gofigure

I'll bet it's because your perceived effort on the trainer is far higher than your actual exertion. Power data or comparison to outside riding will reveal if this is the case. I used to find it MUCH harder to sustain any sort of decent intensity on the trainer until I had power data (it was just virtual power from Zwift for the first 2 years but that's pretty accurate for the KK Road Machine, and more recently later I've been using a power meter).

I think it would be useful to proceed as follows:

1. Assuming you have GPS data for some previous outdoor rides. Go to BestBikeSplit and try and model a few of them to see approx what power you would have required to do the course in the time you did. The free version will let you do this. Model a few different rides and use rides where you know you were pushing reasonably hard. This will give you an idea of what power levels you've been riding at outdoors. It's only an estimate but it will give you something to start from.
2. Find a way to produce power data on the trainer. There are 2 or 3 possibilities for this without buying expensive equipment. If you have a decent trainer with realistic power curves, you can use software (Zwift or similar) that can take a wheel speed from your rear wheel speed sensor (assuming you have one) and show you a live power estimate based on the known characteristics of your trainer. This is called virtual power. it works great for a few trainers with reliable, temperature stable, resistance units. The KK Road Machine for example. Others are less good. Zwift used to do a free trial period which would be sufficient for your purposes if they still do it. Alternatively I'm sure one of it's competitiors provide this option. Failing that, can you borrow a smart trainer or PM from an accommodating friend that owns either? Borrowing a PM is probably a long shot!

Once you've got an idea of your typical outdoor power and can measure or estimate your indoor power, you can see whether the low indoor HR is simply the result of not working as hard. As I said at the start, perceived effort can be much higher than actual effort when you're on a trainer. There are a few reasons, some psychological and some physical. That I can think of:

1. Insufficient cooling. A big fan makes a huge difference.
2. No feedback of speed except for a change in tone from the trainer or a speed figure on your watch/bike computer screen.
3. No distractions from the effort, like scenery, traffic, fellow riders, competition.
4. Increased discomfort due to different motion relative to the bike when it's locked into a trainer.
5. Insufficient cooling again! (you want airflow to facilitate sweat evaporation, not a freezing room)

I can produce similar power inside and outside but it feels much easier outside and I can produce it for much longer, UNLESS I have good feedback indoors. If I want to achieve anything useful indoors without it feeling like torture, I need good data that tells me how hard I'm working and presents it in a form that adds some intuitive satisfaction. Movies/TV does nothing for me, my power just drifts down to pathetic levels until I pay attention to what I'm doing again. Zwift, however, makes it possible for me to train well and even enjoy it. When I used to sit on the trainer and watch time/speed/HR on my bike computer, it felt far harder, and my HR tended to be much lower. Not because I couldn't produce the physical stimulus to get it higher, but because the perceived effort was out of proportion with normal training.

It's pretty normal for HR to be a little lower in the bike. In my case I can get up to about 175 in an FTP test while I was able to hit 191 at the end of a 5K.

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What's your CdA?

I find heart rate to be a bit of a variable in itself... heart rate can be a bad indicator for me and I've come to rely more on power when riding indoors vs. doing HR based stuff.

I know you said you don't have a PM, neither do I technically but I use PerfPro(it's free to demo) with my rollers that have a virtual power curve built into the software so I can train with power vs. HR. I tested my FTP with the software and it plugs my FTP into my workouts... I don't race or ride outside with power but I find training indoors with power is a good tool. Maybe it has a virtual power curve for your trainer?

If you're going at a level that you can't sustain I'd say you're probably exceeding your FTP capabilities and you'd be better off if you had some idea what you were doing powerwise vs. what you're doing now.

I think most see a slightly higher HR while running than cycling at similar efforts. But being that far off on a hard ~6 minute effort? Maybe your perception of effort is too strongly tied to how hard your pressing the pedals (torque), and doesn't take in the other half of the power equation which is cadence? Your HR might not be as high if you're pedaling slower but harder, biasing your effort more towards anaerobic. In a workout of a just-below-threshold-power intervals, I typically ride at a cadence of around 90rpm and have a HR around 160. If I drop the cadence to 70, but maintain that same power by pressing harder, my HR will be ~10bpm lower. One might think that "lower HR = less work = more sustainability," but the truth is, I have much more endurance at 90rpm than 70rpm for the same given power.

You could use more data than HR, like cadence and power. If you don't have a power meter, wheel speed on the trainer can be a proxy. While it's not always a linear relationship, resistance is generally constant for a given wheel speed. So while 22mph might require more (or less) than 10% more power to sustain than 20mph, the power to maintain 22mph should be the same every ride.* Try riding at the same wheel speed at different cadences by changing gears. See what happens to your HR. Find a cadence that lets your HR get up closer to your easy 30 minute run HR. If that's low 140's, I'd be looking for a cadence that get's my HR to the mid 130's.


*if it's a wheel-on trainer, it's important to maintain the same tire pressure and the same amount of tire deflection on the roller.

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If your Z3 HR on the run is 140-150, your Z3 bike HR is going to be about 130-140.

Get a nice fan to help emulate outdoors conditions and if you want to see real, objectivally quanitifable gains, gett a power meter. You wont regret it.

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Toro Performance

heart rate is not a good metric

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That seems like a pretty good discrepancy. My HR max while running is around 190 and I've seen low 180's on the bike. I'm 40 years old as a reference point. At the end of a recent indoor TT I hit 181 on the bike. At the end of a 5k I usually see mid 180's.

Easy paces HR is around 140-145 on the run and 130-135 for the bike.

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Really only HIGHLY trained cyclists have the same max HR and VO2 max for running and cycling. I know you're not talking about maximal efforts, but the relation extends to submaximal efforts. The explanation is that cardiac output is the limiting variable for running, but with cycling, the heart's ability to pump blood outstrips the muscle's capacity to use it. To use an extreme example for clarity, sit down and do a maximal set of bicep curls for 3 minutes; your heart rate will come nowhere near either running or cycling even though your perceived exertion is 9-10.

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To add a clarifying note: you have a single max HR, which is determined intrinsically by the heart; different activities (at max) will demand different proportions of that max, dependent upon their respective volume of active muscle. Running and other activities that recruit proportionally more muscle mass (e.g., Nordic skiing) will demand higher proportions of that max HR at the same perceived exertion. In these activities (at max), if your heart was capable of providing more blood, you would be able to do more work. As you descend through different activities that recruit less muscle (e.g., cycling and bicep curls), pumping more blood isn't going to improve performance, and there's no stimulus for HR to increase further. Your observation that HR is proportionally low for cycling despite high exertion is the effect of that relation. I hope that makes sense.

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My HR on the trainer is a lot lower than the same effort riding on the road. I always wondered if this was normal. I might cruise along on the trainer at 65% intensity with a HR around 112 BPM, but outside at that same intensity, I might be at 135 BPM. I just thought my heart rate was up outside because I was dodging cars and other stressors not present on the bike.

My max heart rate on an indoor trainer is always substantially lower than it is for a similar effort outside. Same with treadmill running vs. road/trail running. I've never observed a good comparison between HR and effort across scenarios. Now HR comparing hard outside effort vs. another hard outside effort does seem consistent. But, as an example, at the end of a VO2 max interval session or FTP test indoors, my HR may be 165bpm and I feel like crap. A VO2 max sprint outside in a group would easily put me in 185-190bpm range. 165bpm is closer to sweetspot for me outdoors. YMMV.

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Blog | Strava

Have you done any sort of test to establish heartrate zones and threshold levels?
If not, you don't even know what you are shooting at.

Also- a threshold test will give you some sort of idea of how hard you need to be pushing to hit the various levels in your training.
My guess is that right now you don't have enough tension or gearing is wrong-

Are you measuring that 65% intensity with the same PM both inside and outside?

The TR Oly build progression includes a workout with



3' @ 110% FTP
3' @ 120%
3' @ 130%

short longer rest break, then

3' @ 130%
3' @ 120%
3' @ 110%

And yes, those 130% intervals really suck! I am literally seeing stars through most of those 2 sets.

And in this progression, the final 2 intervals of 120% and 110% feel just as hard after that beatdown and def do not feel like a pullback whatsoever despite the reduced power!

This is one of those workouts where I absolutely prepare for - no hard SBR the day before, and often a day off completely or only easy stuff beforehand. Lots of sleep, and I don't do this workout before 7AM, as it's too hard then.

Thanks.

The TR workout is Givens. Tough as heck!

Although to be honest, I find even harder (haven't even managed to do it straight through yet despite trying twice), the not-so-scarying seeming 90 minute steady state ride in the plan, called Phoenix +2, which is probably near Oly race pace.

It never gets to the point of severe pain, but I just gotta backpedal it several times in the final 15 minutes as I'm so mentally and physically drained. And it's not just the 120 TSS of that ride - I've ridden literally double the TSS of that ride routinely in outdoor long hillclimb rides. It's that relentless steady state effort in aero position that just grinds you down. Tough stuff!

I've been lucky enough for my ankles to make a partial comeback, although this meant I had to abandon barefoot/minimalist running as the impact was just too great for my ankles. I'm now on maxi shoes (ironically) which definitely shift the load upwards to hip/thigh/knee, but those areas are pristine in me, and I'm able to run reasonable volumes now and even race. Hoping I can keep this up for another 10 years, but we'll see...

A couple of things to consider when on a trainer. Erg mode is much harder on the muscles than slope mode. If I do a 4 minute interval (or 20) in erg mode at the power I can hold for that duration, my legs are screaming and I can only get my HR up to say 160. If I do the same workout in slope mode, I can hold a noticeably higher power and get my HR up to say 175. Outdoors feels much more similar to slope mode than erg mode. If you are on a regular trainer that just provides pure resistance then it's going give a feel similar to erg mode in terms of physiological demand. Think of the difference between doing 300 watts in a 53/11 going uphill compared to 300 watts in say a 34/28. Same power, but one completely shreds your legs.

I find if I stand up a few times near the beginning and do a hard 30 sec then my HR tends to average a higher level for the same effort over the course of an hour ride. If I stay seated the whole hour my average hear rate will be lower. Once it's up it tend to stay a little higher over the course of an hour.

50 yo and I can run about 140-145 bpm just like you and my Max heart rate is about 174. I have a Cycle Ops stationary bike and my Tri bike is on the trainer at home. I think it might have to do with your cadence. If your gear is too light, you will spin a lot, burn out quick and won't be able to sustain. Change gears around, make it a little heavier and do intervals as well.

So I've done a lactate threshold test twice on a threadmill in a sportslab an once on the bike (last December). I'm a better biker than I am a runner if you'd compare my splits for each discipline, but I've been cycling for a shorter amount of time (2 years now) than I've been running. However I've managed the same max. HR during the ramp test on the bike as I had previously for running (all within 2-3 bpm), while I definitely went as hard as I possibly could until I could go no more for all tests. My aerobic and anaerobic threshold HRs differ but I guess that's "normal". My average and max. HR are within 5bpm if I compare a recent 10k running race at which I PB'ed with a 13.5k ITT.

What does this imply if you don't mind me asking? Since for everyone else this seems to not be the case here, although running at 145bpm indeed feels easier then riding at 145bpm. Sorry if the answer is kind off obvious haha

I don't follow this. Can you clarify?
When you say "regular trainer" I'm, assuming you mean a non-smart trainer or "dumb trainer".
Your example then simply says there's a difference between high and low cadence. Correct?
Perhaps you're also implying a difference between flat outdoor riding, where you can easily unload part of the stroke versus climbing or using a trainer with low inertia where it's more necessary to drive the pedals around more of the stroke?

There is nothing wrong with you. Running HR is normally higher than on the bike. I also have the same problem on the trainer. My HR is lower on avg on my trainer than the road for the same effort/power

I'm going against the grain here....while lower bike numbers are typical, the discrepancies you are showing seem VERY wide to me and seem to be far beyond the norm. You seem to be saying that a tempo run HR is 140-145 which may put higher intensity run intervals at a HR of 155-166...??, But that when you do high intensity bike trainer intervals, HR doesn't surpass 125ish....I don't know the reason why but a 30-40 BPM gap seems like a enormous gap to me. I would expect more like a 10-15 beat difference, although there will obviously be variation with people.

This phenomenon is more common using wrist based optical HR... The watches tend to be less accurate when you're on the bike (my HR on my Garmin 935 tends to read low relative to RPE and Power on the trainer, compared to on the road).

x2. Me too.

Did any of the tests provide you with exhaled gas analysis (e.g., VO2 or RER)? And did they provide you with a max HR for both bike and run or are you using max HR from your races? Presuming that the max HRs are true maxes, and that they are quite close between the two disciplines, that means that the local training acclimations to cycling have been sufficient to take advantage of your heart's capacity to pump blood. So you're close to shifting the limiting performance variable (for cycling) from the local muscle environment to cardiac output. Those training acclimations include increased mitochondrial density, mitochondrial oxidative capacity, fiber type changes, enhanced metabolite clearance, increased vascular density, and a huge list of other potential factors.

Just a note on obtaining max HR: probably the most reliable way to achieve these would be VO2 max interval repeats of three to five minutes in duration with a minute or two rest in between. These are best-effort intervals and four or five of them should give you a pretty reliable max HR value. Please understand that max tests are very stressful and physically demanding so be sure that you're fit enough to participate. Just a disclaimer so I don't feel quite as bad if you keel over ;-)

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You know what's weird, I have the same issue... unless I'm riding on Zwift. I don't know what it is about the mental aspect, but my hr for a given perceived effort is more in line with outdoor than it would be just watching netflix or something. Honestly I think non-Zwift trainer riding just feels harder for a given true effort, because it is so god-awful monotonous.

Yes they did, RER was around 1.1-1.15 for all tests I've done. VO2max was 53 first run test (untrained, I went there when I wanted to start training for my first triathlon so I had an idea about my trainingzones), 57 the 2nd run test (partially due to losing weight) and 62 for the cycling test (which was done at another lab than the 2 run tests if that matters). Max. lactate was also a lot higher during the cycling test (>13mmol compared to +-10mmol for the 2 run tests). I assume these are very close to max. since they want you to go until you (think) you can go no further, which I did although in a race one might be able to push through a bit more.

Thanks for the reply!

The field test I read about has one doing an all out 1 minute effort after doing 3-4 3 minute efforts on incomplete rest intervals. That last all out effort will give me 3-4 beats more than the VO2 effort peaks. In running, doing 400's will have a higher hr peak than doing 800's for me.

I guess it just depends on what information you're trying to obtain and how you want to use it. A one-minute maximal effort is only about 50% aerobic; anaerobic metabolites of contraction are also a big stimulus for cardiac output. So if you're trying to assess your maximal heart rate under mostly aerobic conditions, a longer test is probably better if you're using this value to either prescribe or interpret your aerobic efforts. If you just want to know your heart's intrinsic maximal rate, use whatever test yields the highest value. But yeah, for my purposes, I just use the highest value that I've achieved during running, regardless of the duration. For me, that happens to be during full one-mile repeats.

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Didn't read all the comments, but I had the same issue with my CycleOps fluid 2.
Just could not get the high end.

Switched to magnus 2 years ago and now the H2.
I run my workouts I have created and when the intervals hit, I have no problem getting 150's and it's HARD! It simulates the road so much better.
I just could not get that action from the fluid trainer.

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Nailed it. Couldn't be explained any better.

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Badig| Strava

I'd consider myself above average on the bike, but by no means highly trained. I've seen a max HR in the low 200s during both a hard 5K and VO2 intervals on the trainer recently. I'm definitely a hummingbird HR type. Personally, the only time I've had trouble getting HR up on the trainer was during times of extreme fatigue. I always find threads like this so interesting. The human body is amazing and highly variable.

Very true. Stand up to pedal to warm up. Take breaks and sit and don't pedal, letting blood refresh the legs. You'll start off biking with far happier legs and HR.

Also, don't deny your dedication to your dark master - The Coffee Bean.

How old are you, if you don't mind me asking? It's interesting, elite endurance athletes tend to have slightly lower max HRs than untrained counterparts. I don't recall if this is a training acclimation or simply a property of their cardiovascular systems. There are several mechanisms involved, but the consequence was interpreted as a lengthened filling time, permitting greater stroke volume and ultimately resulting in a higher cardiac output and VO2. You also have to remember that these people have giant hearts, and if they were forced to operate in the 200s, there probably just wouldn't be enough time for the heart to contract sufficiently to eject an optimal volume of blood. So it's of physiological benefit for them to sacrifice rate in favor of optimizing ejection fraction. For us, there's more than enough time for our tiny hearts :-)

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Some people might not have the specificity on the run or on the bike to achieve the same outputs.

I don't think a pro cyclist could get a HR up anywhere close to their VO2 efforts on the bike if told to go out and run 800m. The legs just ain't there. Same for runners hopping on the bike.

Triathletes have enough of a balance it probably doesn't make as much a difference.

I feel like I'm different than the rest of the world in that my max heart rate is higher on the bike than running. I've hit 185 a few times on the bike, but I hardly ever crack 175 on the run (it has to be hot and humid, and/or I'm doing some sustain high end like 1 mile repeats). I think it's because cycling puts you in max effort situations which running never would due to the dynamics of racing. Every time I got over 180 on the bike has been a result of me emptying the tank for 60s to close down a gap or get over a short roller after I've already been riding near threshold for a while. In running, you don't have the same demands of having to suddenly jump from threshold to a max effort then come back down to threshold.

I will say that my heart rate is very much condition dependent. When it's cool and dry in the winter, whether outside or inside, I really have to work to break 170 regardless of sport. Humidity in particular raises my average and max heart rate by about 10-15bpm. I don't use a fan on my trainer, so the HR I can hit is dependent on the conditions in my apartment.

All of the HR based metrics that I use are based off of HR Max or bike HR peak. As in VO2 work is generally around 90-95% of max. Start going much above that and I'll have to be careful with adding any more intensity the next few days. I don't set the paces by the HR though, just by RPE and measure HR, but knowing how truly hard some efforts are helps me with gauging the workload for that week.

I think you're mostly talking about a typical peak value achieved during an event (training or racing), right? If you did an incremental exercise test with the goal of measuring VO2 max, I think you'd be surprised to see that your running values (both HR and VO2 max) are higher, or at least as high, as cycling. But you're right, in the contexts that you're observing heart rate, you're probably inducing a greater cardiovascular demand on the bike than when you're running.

And yeah, your ability to cool yourself is critical for both performance and as a variable in manipulating heart rate. Sweat is far less effective when it's really humid so you have more blood being shunted toward the skin and away from active muscle. The consequence is that you have less blood returning to the heart and lower stroke volume. In order to maintain cardiac output, heart rate increases to compensate. I'm a pretty big guy and I'll also see a ~15bpm increase in warm weather compared to cool at the same absolute work rate. I really hate summer.

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Yep, I do pretty much the exact same thing.

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That's a really good point about racing vs a ramp test.In steady state workouts (even VO2 max type work at 120% of FTP), my heart rate is lower than with racing/group dynamics, and it pretty similar to a track workout. I haven't done a 5k in a while as I'm not a fast runner at short distances, but in the last one I did, my HR was similar to an FTP test on the bike (average low 170s, peak at 177 or so at the end).

Now that I think about it, what's really interesting is that my HR is lower for the same RPE on the bike at lower intensities, but they start to converge near my threshold. Even if drafting were as big of a deal as in cycling, I don't know if you'd see the same effect because the degree of acceleration isn't the same as in cycling. T o go from threshold to all-out sprint in running is probably an increase of maybe 50% in your speed, vs you can more than double your speed if you throw down a 30s 800W attack on a hill.

Sorry, this slipped by. I'm 38. Was a DI collegiate rower. Have always run HR very high. I can run/ride and be comfortably conversational well into the 180s

This is probably what I like the most about ST. Every time an interesting topic (IMO) gets discussed, some ST denizen pops out of the Ether and contributes with knowledge unknown to me.

Mind if I ask you what your trade is?

I currently do research in kidney diseases and their co-morbidities. But about half of my academic training was in exercise physiology....masters and about 5 years of a PhD before I changed focus to pharmacology.

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That's crazy. The 220-age definitely isn't working for you.

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