Hi All,
I just got back from a ride which turned into an impromptu interval session. I’d never done any maxHR testing on the bike before and had previously just used maxrunHR-10ish for my max bike hr. This was about 175 and it synced up nicely with my 40k bike HR in an oly distance tri. Training zones addded up ok and it felt right.
top of 80% karvonen HRR was about 146, which felt pretty good.
Turns out on the last sprint I really hammered it and was watching the HR monitor creep up. Easily hit 187, which was what I previously thought my runmaxHR was.
So, my guestimate for my bikemaxHR was way off. But how do I reconcile this with my training zones and my 40k avHR? My new 80% is 158, which is what I previously thought my tempo hr was.
wtf? Am I not riding hard enough across the board or am I missing something?
I use the lactate threshold test for figuring out my training zones and don’t even pay attention to a max HR number.
I do a bike and run test to determine my LT for each. I do this by warming up for about 10 min then do a 30 min time trial. At 10 min I hit the split button on my HRM and finish the time trial. I get my average HR for the last 20 min on the TT which is supposed to be very close to your LT. It turned out that my run is about 4 beats higher than my bike but I come from cycling and explosive sports and am definitely not a runner.
Once I get my LT I look up my training zones in the Training Bible or Going Long. If you don’t have these books, do the test and send me a message with the LT numbers and I’ll send you what the zones should be.
I’m 37 so my max HR should be near 183 but I can easily get over that on the bike and run. I’ve seen over 200 while playing hockey but at that point I’m about to puke.
i’ve had recent success using phil maffetone’s formula for aerobic training but i know i’ll get flamed for suggesting that there’s one group of numbers good for both bike and run. plus, he doesn’t recommend anerobic training until your aerobic system is fully built, blah blah blah.
formula (off the top of my head): 180-age +5 if you’re an athlete who’s trained 4X/week with no injury for 2 years.
I agree with jaretj - %maxHR is pretty meaningless. If 2 athletes have the same maxHR but althete 1 hits LT while at 70% of max while althete 2 hits LT at 85%, they will have vastly different training zones based on HR.