Wow, I check back in after being in the wilderness for a couple years and what do I find? Coggan, Roady, Rchung???.... What is this, 2005? The only suspect missing is Smartass Coach.

Good to see you back AC. I guess I need to start checking in again.

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Steve

http://www.PeaksCoachingGroup.com

Amazingly true as a lurker here and other discussion lists where I am picking up small nuggets from these threads on how to utilize the power meter data in refining my training structure. I have a lot more to learn so thank you for the morsels of information :-)

Again, I would rate myself as still a newbie (recreational cyclist) and may not be using some of the metrics correctly, but using TSS as guide to helping refine my training schedule structure for day to day consistency sake has worked pretty good.

Thanks

Not really necessary. I've had a bit more free time on my hands recently, but life is slowly returning to its normally hectic pace, so I'm going to have to go back to lurking.

Just throwing in my 2 cents, since I do find some of the power crowd to have an oddly misty-eyed religious attitude toward power.

If I had to choose, I'd throw away the strap without a second, thought, but....

I find HR valuable in two ways.

1) I find my HR at steady 200W to be a very good indicator of my immediate readiness. It's around 105BPM when I'm in top shape, 120BPM when I'm "overreached" and higher than that if something's wrong with me. I do these efforts every time I warm up, and it's pretty consistent. I trust it more it more than my "Freshness" score. It was useful to me last week when it hit 130BPM even though I felt absolutely fine. I quit my workout wondering what was going on, and sure, enough about 5 hours later I was camped out on the toilet for 24 hours food poisoning. People might complain there that it's useless because various life stresses can mess that all up, etc. I'd argue that various life stress are *part of training*, that it's useful information to know when something affects your training.

I'm sure I could get this same sort of indication with some variant of FTP test, but the benefit of the HR version is that it can be done every day with effectively no additional training stress. It's just part of the warmup.

2) In crits and road races I find HR to be a good surrogate for "available W' ", in energy terms. Which is effectively the capacity to attack. If my HR is under 165, I give myself the green light to launch. Because I know I'm likely to be able to put in a 30s effort at 600W+, then recover back to FTP without cracking. If it's over, I sit in. Instantaneous power is no good for this because it's rapidly fluctuating between 0 and 600 during a normal crit lap. Something like 30-second average power might be nearly as good, but I haven't messed with it because I find 3-second power useful for other purposes, e.g. settling quickly into FTP during a breakaway. Someday there may be better-modeled indicators of available W' available on head units. Until then, HR works for me.

In summary,

Power excels at tracking performance, and is pretty-good-and-getting better at tracking accumulated stress over time. HR seems to be good at measuring instantaneous stress.

It's also good for when your PM dies in the middle of a serious ride, and then you can use HrTSS so you at least get some credit in WKO+, etc. :)

I'm able to predict my Max 20 minute power from my standard 10 min warm up power / heart rate.

The warm up was originally devised as a standard to ensure my 20 min tests were comparable like for like. It became evident the heart rate power ratio during the warm up predicted the result of the Max test.

This holds true on Concept2 and Wattbike, (before the Wattbike I used a wind trainer with speed of rear wheel as a proxy for power), and has proved reliable since 1998 when I first bought my own Concept2.

Thats a great post Trail.

I have found a like warmup that gauges my readyness to train to use in conjunction with TSB. Its called like Lambert&Lambert Submaximal Cycle test and I think it was designed to be used with HR, but with power it goes like this:
6 minutes @ 55%
6 minutes @ 75%
3 minutes @ 95%

When I am fatigued those 3 minutes is just awful. When I am in great shape I get very amped up. And usually it is somewhere in between and just enough to make me feel ready and have a great session.

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

I'm able to predict my maximal 20 min power from my perceived exertion while warming up. An even better predictor, though, is my maximal 20 min power.

So can I. The heart rate data is confirmation. The heart rate data is additional evidence which is easily recorded alongside power. It isn't easy to record perceived exertion for every minute of a 20 minute effort. In fact sometimes after very hard training it is difficult to remember very much. So heart rate data is good as a guide alongside power.

I don't understand why you choose to ignore hard evidence. I use power, perceived exertion and heart rate. I'm doing all that you do - just I'm looking at all the data instead of ignoring some of it.

Do you mean your 20 minute maximal power yesterday, a week ago or last year is the best predictor of your 20 minute maximal power today?

Do you think everyone can predict their maximal 20 minute power from their warm up by perceived exertion?

IOW, at best it is redundant. At worst, though, it is misleading. In between, it is just an unnecessary distraction.

"That which gets measured, gets improved."

I measure power:heart rate ratio. It improves. If you measure power alone you have no evidence your improvement is anything more than trying harder.

I'm all for learning to try harder and train the central governor. But if I remember correctly you think the central governor theory is madness.

Sooner or later if power:heart rate ratio is not improving you will stagnate or go backwards. Unless of course you have found a magic potion which enables you to increase your maximum heart rate year on year. Even if you train yourself to sustain a heart rate closer and closer to your maximum heart rate in the end you run out of heart beats.


Another advantage in heart rate is it is hard evidence for a coach to look at. People can lie to themselves and their coach about how hard or easy a given wattage might have been. Heart rate shows how hard they were really trying.

It takes a special talent to be able include so many fallacies in one short post.

Wow, that is some crazy shit there. We may need to bring back Frank Day to get things back on track.
..

I did warn people to not reply to the troll but anyways

Care to specifically identify all of those fallacies? And report what the truth is instead?

Interesting how people who are unable to construct an argument resort to insults. Many people use power with heart rate. It is a valid scientific approach. I have set out some examples below.


http://cpsinmotion.com/...training-with-power/

""Training with power alone ignores the fact that we are not all ‘machines’, however integrating multiple data channels including heart rate provides a more holistic view of your overall physiology at work. As you become fitter, your heart rate will decrease for a given power output or a given speed on a particular stretch of road or same climb. As your fitness improves your training zones shift and although your maximum heart rate will not change much, your speed and power will change in relation to your heart rate. To accurately determine this, precise testing performed under controlled conditions will help you understand how quickly you are improving and also how well you are able to maintain the improved performance and understand the cyclical periodisation needed to reach your next level.""

""
Training with both a power meter (direct power as opposed to derived power) and a heart rate monitor allows for an ideal combination of the objective measure of exercise intensity and an indirect measure of oxygen consumption. Although interpreting the data can be a daunting task, and can take valuable time to process. The comparative value of the power: heart rate ratio and its relative relationship changes over time, offers excellent insight into how a rider is responding to a training plan and incremental progression in performance without over-loading the individual and reap maximum effect. Riding at the same power output with a lower heart rate is an indication of improved fitness assuming a relative lowering or no change in RPE. An increase in perceived exertion with lower heart rate would suggest fatigue, especially if the rider is unable to sustain a particular power and previous sessions were indicative of a poorer performance. """


And a few more links.
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/...power-and-heart-rate

http://help.trainingpeaks.com/...nd-Efficiency-Factor

http://www.pbscience.com/...r-cardiac-drift.html

http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2011/05/speed-power-heart-rate-and-fitness.html

I posted several power files that blow HR out of the water. How to you account for HR drift? Positive drift? What about negative drift like I see in most of my races? Because HR is elevated from the swim and the shift from being horizontal to vertical. Maybe I swim really hard, but again I've seen it take 30 minutes to slowly drop.

Lets look at what heart rate is for a second....

Your heart a positive displacement pump....though it's imperfect since the valves are just check valves, not positively engaged. Also, the chambers are not emptied completely so it's stroke volume can vary a little so its' "pump curve" in not linear because of this. That aside, even if flow rate was always directly proportional and linear, increase flow rate will increase the potential for higher oxygen consumption, but will not measure it. Couple issues:

Your whole cardio system is not actively controlled by you brain. It's a passive response to chemical triggers. Some triggers can include things not related oxygen consumption.

There are other muscle efficiency factors going on at different intensities. That part of why power and HR zones are used. But these zones will vary day to day just as your FTP will vary.

No system is perfect. All data has value (pace, HR, power) but I just can't place HR above power as it varies so dramatically in varying situations.

Power is a direct measurement of the force generated by your muscles over a given time period. HR doesn't determine how hard you push on the pedals. Even if you were to connect an inline blood monitor that lets say oxygen, CO2 and lactate levels, it still won't tell you how hard your pushing on the pedals at that moment. It's still indirect.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

I agree with you. Yes all data has value, power, pace and heart rate.

But you seem to think I'm saying heart rate is better than power which I'm not. You also seem to think I'm saying heart rate tells you how hard I'm pushing on the pedals which I'm not.

If I had to choose between power or heart rate I would choose power. But I'm saying I prefer to look at power and heart rate.

You mentioned above how your heart rate is affected by the swim etc etc, I don't disagree with you. It is the way heart rate varies alongside power that is of interest.

We agree though that we would not put heart rate above power.

We agree all data has value. I'm advocating not ignoring heart rate alongside power not that heart rate is a superior alternative. If I could look at blood lactate alongside power I would look at that too.

Some interesting stuff here where power and heart rate are used. Sub maximal testing to predict performance. See Chapter 6.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/...0%2FPOY%2F5kL7YVE%3D

I guess HR has value, but it needs to be justified and corrected for conditions.

Today for example we have a little mini polar vortex in this part of the country and dewpoint was down to 50F and 70F ambient. My HR at the same pace was 8bpm lower.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's not completely useless, but I think it tends to be only a little more valuable than using pace/distance on the bike for useful data. You need to include conditions.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

That is exactly my point though. Due to the cooler conditions your heart rate was lower for the same pace/ power.

So suppose you were cycling at 250 watts for an hour at 50F one day then 90F the following day. Both would score the same TSS, but the ride at 90F would be at a higher heart rate.

My view is the ride in high temperatures should be scored higher because the training stress was higher and the higher heart rate reflected this.

For testing though using heart rate you need to control the conditions. But then temperature affects power output too.

You're making a huge assumption there, that your _training stress_ is higher on the hotter day. Is that true? And by how much?

I think everyone will agree that you're likely getting a ton more heat acclimation on the warmer day, but when I hear "training stress", heat acclimation is only one small part of it. I'd bet that you're only having a _slightly_ higher physiological adaptation on the 90F day than the 50F day. You can be as heat acclimated as possible, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can bike fast. But, to the contrary, if you're in great bike shape but you've only biked in 50F weather and go out into 90F heat, you'll probably still do decently.

I think it's likely that if you go out and hold your HR constant at 50F and then do another ride holding the same HR at 90F (likely at a lower power), you'll likely receive LESS overall physiological adaptation (caused by training stress) at the 90F. Put another way, I think if I had to choose an overall training temp, it probably wouldn't be the 90F day.

Well put it this way. Ride for 20 minutes at 90% maximum heart rate at 50F one day. Then ride at 90% maximum heart rate the next day at 90F. Which day do you think you are going to produce the most power?

No way I could ride at FTP for an hour at 90F.

Yet the TSS would be the same for an hour at FTP on both days. The legs would have done the same work but the cardiovascular system would have been more stressed on the hot day than the cool day. Seeing as we are training the cardiovascular system as well as the leg muscles I don't think TSS scores the hot day's training correctly.

Then you have Perceived Exertion. It would certainly feel harder on the hot day. If it feels harder it is harder.

I'm not saying heart rate tracks training better than power. I am saying you get a fuller picture if you track training with both.

You'll have to search to find it, I remember it being posted on the wattage list, but I think there has been research showing training in heat improving performance at normal temperatures, suggesting that the training load is higher.

I don't know of the research, but I know some of the people coaching the GB Modern Pentathlon team in the 1980s were aware of the benefits of training in the heat.

Steve Irwin wrote:

You'll have to search to find it, I remember it being posted on the wattage list, but I think there has been research showing training in heat improving performance at normal temperatures, suggesting that the training load is higher.

This isn't the research but an article referring to it and a link to the research.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/..._type=blogs&_r=0

What surprises me is people intuitively thinking it wouldn't improve performance.

No mention in the study of harmful bacteria leaking into the bloodstream from the gut.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19208999

I also note that they would have got the same TSS for the training done in both the hot and cool conditions.