I’m looking for a bit of insight/advice on where I need to be focusing my training to get toward where I want to be…
the issue I’m having is my heart rate is too high, I can cycle decent distances with no issues and put in miles ( not enough admitedly, but around 50 per week in winter and 100-200 in summer), but on anything resemling an incline cant keep heart rate under control. As an example I often do a 3ish hr ride with freinds, to keep up with the pace i’m pushing an average heart rate in the mid to high 160’s, my max HR is 182ish, maybe 185 at the outside, so far I havent been able to make a decent improvement in Power to HR ratio, currently about 0.7 (as usual) and mannaged a high of 0.9 last year.
Also I cant get my head around how or why top athletes c0ompete with low heart rates, from what Ive seen they are achiving race pace at 130 ish bpm, I would expect them to be pushing harder, like I have to.
Well thanks for the fast responses! thats actually quite impressive.
in order of response,
that sounds counter intuative, eg if I double power I also have to double heart rate, which isnt likly to happen,
I have done intervals in the form of hill repeats, essentilly 1min on 3mins off, thats how I made last years increase, from what Ive read recently maybe I need to shorten the times 20 secs on 20 secs off to push myself harder top force change?
Thanks, Ive just downloaded the book on Kindle, I like to know how things work/analize them so look forward to reading that.
Can you put a figure on what distance/hrs is needed to a) maintain fitness, b) provide a reasonable increase. I’m looking at getting on the trainer a lot more so I can get more hours in due to the UK climate, I was thinking somthing along the lines of 1hr a day 6 days a week with intervals on alternate days.
Heart rate is linked to your cardiovsscular systems. Power is a combination of muscular strength And your cardio capacity. Don’t confused the two.
**As a triathlete, you can often end yo with me aerobic capacity that you had muscular strength of fatigue resistance to handle. **
I find since I’ve really picked up my cycling this season, I have to really be careful not to overcook my runs and watch pace more than heart rate.
i m not sure if your reply was gear toward me? but your making up physiological terminology right now
kept it simple, what your describing in your example is training load. And you arent strength limited in anyway in triathlon. It s your aerobic system that is faulting from producing more power/running quicker.
I should add that I’m not specifically training for triathlons, just cycling, and although Ive been actively cycling for some years now, want to step up my performance as I started doing a few time trials last summer, and want to bring more focus on my training.
With running, my heart rate at a given pace went way way down when I first went from fat to average build. Not sure how it carries over to bikes, but if you are in the process of losing a few pounds, may naturally bring your steady state heart rate down a bit…
As Joe Friel or a good exercise physiology student will tell you, HR gets lower at a given power output when cardiac stroke volume and/or oxygen extraction in the muscles increase(s) with training. Prolonged subthreshold training usually does the job.
This is (literally) the bottom line. But ride more at subthreshold HRs. Reason is that you want to emphasize minimal muscle blood flow to increase oxygen extraction, rather than require extra muscle blood flow (with higher HR and cardiac output) to flush lactate.
I used to wonder why the guys in bike races would always be able to drop me after 30 km or so. I was seemingly pushing as hard as them.
Turns out it was simple. I didn’t ride enough. They had been racing and riding for years more than me and would double what I did during the week.
I rode more and got stronger. You need to ride more.
