I have been training pretty hard the last several weeks and I have seen some pretty significant changes in heart rate. Ultimately I am wondering if I should be adjusting my heart rate zones in Strava or Garmin Connect (I have a Fenix 7).
The main issue I am seeing is that I will be doing pretty large efforts, however, according to Strava the relative effort is very minor. For example, last week I did a 30km run. Average pace of 5:30/km, my average heart rate was 145. So according to Strava, the “relative effort” was only 89, which basically meant I saw no “fitness increase” (I was wearing an HRM pro).
I don’t really think the solution is that I should be running harder to increase my heart rate? My legs definitely felt the workout, but according to my apps it was basically nothing.
I know these apps are imperfect, but it’s all I have and I’m training enough at this stage where I would really like to have things dialed in.
As another example, I did a “12km Easy run” at 5:17/average yesterday and my average HR was 147, Strava gave this a “relative effort” of 63, meaning my “Fitness Level” (currently 137) decreased by one for the day.
So questions are:
-Should I be adjusting my heart rate zones?
-Should I be pushing harder on these easier/slower runs to bring my heart rate up more?
-Are there other metrics I should be looking at?
How did you set your HR zones in the first place? I’ll be honest I can’t say I’ve used the training side of Strava much and haven’t really paid much attention to the metrics it spits out.
But I imagine if the zones are set incorrectly then the output will be garbage.
Having said all that, my HR zones are set the same on TrainingPeaks and Strava (I guess I did that at some point) and after an 8km run last night I get a TSS score of 78 from TrainingPeaks and a Relative Effort score of 35 from Strava. A 100km bike ride last weekend is 145 TSS on TrainingPeaks and 89 on Strava.
Clearly the numbers and algorithms are different across the platforms.
Funnily enough both TrainingPeaks and Strava are pretty in touch with my overall scoring.
Training Peaks:
Fitness - 36
Form - 2
Fatigue - 39
Strava:
Fitness - 36
Form - 6
Fatigue - 29
As always I wouldn’t be paying super close attention to the individual numbers and more so to the overall trends. If your fitness is trending up then obviously the training is working as expected.
These are the hear rate zones that Strava does automatically base on your maximum heart rate.
Unfortunately, I don’t pay for Training Peaks to compare.
Generally the fitness is trending upwards which is great. I really would just like to have my Zones correct as I’m often trying to run to a correct heart rate based on zones!
Strava/TP metrics are all based around threshold HR/pace. TP does a good job of estimating your LTHR based on ~60min best efforts, but idk how Strava does it. Regardless, a tried and true way to find your own is a 30 min all-out time trial. Hit lap after 10 min and your HR average for the last 20min is going to be a good LTHR number.
Also-how long have you been training? If it’s <6months you’re going to see some massive changes in HR:pace just as your general fitness builds. The Strava/TP metrics are more suited to a more stabilized fitness with slower changes.
All of this said, it’s not just good but I’d say mandatory to learn to train by feel. HR can be a good guide, as can pace/power, but it’s important to know what easy/tempo/threshold feel like. This is especially true if you’re going to be looking at calculated metrics, too many people have chased CTL and end up doing training to raise their score, not to make them faster.
Did you go out and find your max HR or did you just do the 220-age thing. If you’re feeling spicy then go and find a long enough hill to run up (2-3min long) and go as fast as you can and find your max.
Otherwise, do as mathematics said above. Do a warmup and then run for 30min as fast as you can maintain to get a rough idea of your threshold. MyProCoach has calculators which will then set your HR and Pace zones based on those numbers (avg HR & avg pace)
My max heart rate i based on what I have hit as a maximum in the last little while. I have it as 190, but I have hit as high as 195 on the rare occasion. I’m 41, I know the 220-age is a pretty arbitrary calculation, so I’ve been going on what I’ve actually hit.
I will try to 30 minute workout for a threshold number!
I’ve been training nearly 10 years, but I am on and off depending on…life.
More recently I have had unstructured training during a 4 month road trip through the US, doing summits, long bike rides, big trails runs, climbing and keeping about 30-40km of running or trail running on the schedule.
I’m about 5 weeks into a more structured training schedule with about 65km of running, including speed work, 180km of cycling and some strength, yoga, etc per week. I am seeing pretty significant improvement at this point, hopefully it continues for a while before plateauing!
I find that TP is really weird around LTHR, it’s like every time I do a run that’s over 60 minutes it adjusts it, so if I do a long run I get an “updated” LTHR of maybe 154 and then I’ll do a tempo run a few days or a week later and it’ll give me an “updated” LTHR of 165 or 169. I kind of lost faith in it given that it was changing the LTHR on every single run that was over an hour (which is almost all of them) and not taking the type of run into account. Which one do you believe?
I will do the 30 minute test tomorrow, I was planning on a threshold run anyhow, so that’s a good replacement!
I do feel I’ve had enough experience at this stage to have a pretty good handle on the feel, however, I’ve also seen the value in looking back at my previous yers of training on Strava or Garmin and seeing what I did working up to a race or to build my fitness. I’m also a data geek, so I just love stats! So I do really see the value in both and want to get the data as accurate as possible too.
** I have it as 190, but I have hit as high as 195 on the rare occasion.//**
Not a knock on you, but this is why so many have trouble with HR training, zones, and other associated training plans. You really dont have even the basic of knowledge of what you are doing. Max HR is such a simple thing, it is the highest(without being sick) HR that your heart can go. For our purposes getting within a few beats is plenty close enough. You put in 190 but then just said you have seen 195. Why would you do that?
And then you need the context of that 195, was it a time you really hit your max, or was it just a really hard effort at the end of a hard workout? Typically you need to do a max test running, preferably on a treadmill. You slowly work up the pace and the incline, usually takes about 20 minutes or so. You got to complete exhaustion, record that rate, then add 5 beats because you probably pushed out at the very end. There is a standard protocol called the Bruce, but others can work just as well…
I hear people like you all the time, I use so and so for my max. Then I ask them what is the highest they have seen in a race or workouts, and half of them say something higher than they claim their max to be. If you saw 195, then probably true max is over 200, how much would have to be determined by an easy but painful test…Or there are formulas to use 5k/10k running race ones, some bike ones like 20 minutes, but those aren’t usually as accurate as an actual max test.
I guess anothe part of the the real conundrum for me here is that the Strava “fitness” scale (Or CTL?) then doesn’t seem to fit with the standard wisdom of the day. If I were to push harder for my 30km long run I would be getting up into Zone 3, which so many people say now is a no-no, but I would be rewarded on the Strava “Fitness” scale.
If the vast majority of the training world is saying “run slow to get faster”, “build fitness by running slowly”, etc, etc. Then why isn’t Strava or CTL recognizing these runs as improving my “fitness” much (or any) more than a 5km interval or a 10km tempo run.
Conventional wisdom right now is saying that the long runs are the most important ones, and to make sure they aren’t too fast (that you’d get into zone three). But then Strava is saying…meh, you’re 30k run was hardly a workout and didn’t improve your fitness.
Maybe a Strava (Or CTL) problem?
-You’ll have so many people say “Just do 220 - your age” like it’s a rule.
-I just read a forum where someone said they hit 220 and figured they should go to the doctor and almost everyone said ti was likely an equipment anomaly
-I went with 190 because I figured it may be an equipment anomoly
-You then tell me “I don’t have any clue what I’m doing”, just do this specific test and then just throw another 5 on there because I likely didn’t actually go full out.
I don’t have a lab to test it, but there’s isn’t a single one of those above scenarios that isn’t fudging something, so presumably yours is fudging it just right? But yes, at 41, it just seems a little high to me to say 200 or more by throwing some extra on. And I can assure when I did see that 195 on my watch I was seriously maxed out, on a very hot day, about a year ago.
I don’t have a lab to test it, but there’s isn’t a single one of those above scenarios that isn’t fudging something, so presumably yours is fudging it just right?//
Like I said earlier, you just have to get close enough for the zones to make sense. The test doesnt have to be done in a lab, but you do need a good treadmill with high incline. Look up Bruce protocol and that will get you where you can get that “close” enough number. I trained athletes in the past that had 255 max HR’s, and others that were 160, and they were basically the same age. So there are the outer limits of your bell curves…
Many guys your age are in the 210 to 220 range, many of my old pro friends were routinely there in their late 30’s. Imagine when this 19 year old girl I was training had a 180 HR at an 8 minute mile, and she could run a 5;05 mile at the time. And at 180 she was hardly breathing hard at all, her PE was in line with her paces like the rest of us, just a humming bird HR going on underneath. What really mattered of course was at what % of her max could she work at, and that is how we compare ourselves to others and to our former selves too…
I guess anothe part of the the real conundrum for me here is that the Strava “fitness” scale (Or CTL?) then doesn’t seem to fit with the standard wisdom of the day. If I were to push harder for my 30km long run I would be getting up into Zone 3, which so many people say now is a no-no, but I would be rewarded on the Strava “Fitness” scale.
If the vast majority of the training world is saying “run slow to get faster”, “build fitness by running slowly”, etc, etc. Then why isn’t Strava or CTL recognizing these runs as improving my “fitness” much (or any) more than a 5km interval or a 10km tempo run.
Conventional wisdom right now is saying that the long runs are the most important ones, and to make sure they aren’t too fast (that you’d get into zone three). But then Strava is saying…meh, you’re 30k run was hardly a workout and didn’t improve your fitness.
Maybe a Strava (Or CTL) problem?
The CTL model is largely just an exponential multiplier applied to you output. Doing 10 miles at 7:30 may be 100, but doing 10 miles with the first 5 at 5:00 and the last 5 at 10:00 will be a bit higher, depending on where your threshold is set. It shouldn’t auto adjust your threshold down, only up.
Re Zone 3: the model is actually correct here. An hour in Z3 will have a higher TSS than an hour in Z2. This is completely correct. The argument against z3 is that it causes much more fatigue than z2 while only giving a little bit more benefit. The pyramidal model uses z3 training just fine.
I was able to sort through my Garmin data by Heart rate, this goes back about 8 years. There are handful of runs where I actually hit 200, only a couple where I was actually wearing an HRM and those on intense interval sessions. So, if we were to say my max heart rate is 200 (or we could throw on the extra and make it 205, which presumably you’d recommend?). I go to check the zones. This is comparing MyProCoach, Strava, and Garmin and they all have wildly different outputs. Gamin confuses things further by presenting it as a per centage and does not show the actual bpm, so I’ve done the math to compare apples to apples.
Any thoughts on which of the below is actually a better general output? Or does this really just mean all of these calculators are garbage and you should just set your own heart rates manually by feel.
I will try an LTHR test today, however, Im wondering if my legs right now are more of a limiting factor than my heart rate. I might not have the legs to push to my true maximum effort. Or is that silliness? Would you generally suggest doing an LTHR test after a rest day or actually need to taper a bit to be accurate? I did a 100km ride yesterday.
That Max Heart rate stuff is great but not as great as lactate threshold HR. A track sprinter with a 200MHR isn’t going to have the same LTHR as a LC triathlete with a 200MHR. The sprinter will probably be closer to 170 where the triathlete will be closer to 180. But they’d both have the same zones by MHR percents. The sprinter would consistently be working in too high of an intensity and the triathlete too low. But if you get you LTHR you can have a much closer measure of where you actually are training.
What you’re saying about legs vs heart rate is correct. Your max heart rate is driven by your muscular recruitment and is different for different sports. Cross country skiing is probably the highest max hr you could get. Imagine doing max effort bicep curls, you could find a Max HR value for them but it’s not going to be anywhere near running/cycling. In that case surely it’s your muscles limiting you.
Also, not to rant, but the 5,6,7 zone model is kind of silly. I know it’s what’s most common, but there’s really not a big physiological difference between Z1 and Z2, or Z5 and Z6, or really Z4 and Z5 but less so there. The three zone model is probably the most physiologically correct – Z1 has little to no lactate accumulation, Z2 has raised blood lactate that remains stable at this range of intensities, and Z3 is anything where blood lactate accumulates at a steady intensity (sort of lactate threshold but actually a bit below, technically maximum lactate steady state).
Any thoughts on which of the below is actually a better general output? Or does this really just mean all of these calculators are garbage and you should just set your own heart rates manually by feel. //
I think the calculators will work for some people, but in general I believe they are tough to get that last bit of good information…And not sure what you mean by feel, you can set zones(which are numbers) and you can watch them in real time and afterwards in a download. Its not like you didnt do the workout. But I do have friends that are so tied to their gadgets and strava, that if it didnt happen there, then it didnt happen. One guys did a 10k and set a new PR and kept running past the finish line for 100 yards because his strava 10 was short.
To me that is the problem, not the gadgets. People need to get back in the real world and do their training and racing there. Its ok for the virtual one to track it, but as an afterthought. And I suspected that you had some 200+ old days, glad you were able to find them and go forward now. And yes, I would use 205 for your theoretical max and set zones off of that, things will make more sense now that using that nonsense 190…(-;
Of course you have to do some stuff manually, but it is just simple math. And now you will learn a lot more about yourself and how you adapt to different training stimuli .
So I just finished my LTHR test - 30 minutes total full out, take the HR average of the last 20.
I had an average heart rate of 182 with a max of 185. Given I’m well into a pretty heavy training block there is definitely some muscular fatigue, I would assume some cardio fatigue as well?
So that would put me at:
Resting heart rate - 53
LTHR - 173 (which is what training peaks announced after I finished)
Max Heart Rate - 205
It would presumably good to do another LTHR test in another month or so, preferably when actually rested up a bit?
Dafuq man? You go out and do the LTHR test. Awesome, very hard test, well done. You get a LTHR number as prescribed, 182. You inexplicably decide your LTHR is 9 beats lower than that.
Do plan on doing every training session completely recovered? Most training is a little bit fatigued, so probably best to have a fatigued LTHR number anyway. Furthermore, being fatigued should make your LTHR apear lower, not higher-If you’re on good legs you’ll be able to push harder, no?
You’re setting yourself up to train too easy and get less out of yourself than you otherwise could.
I was basing that on 95% of the average of 182, pretty much everything I’ve seen online says take 95% of your average heart rate over that 20 minute period for your LTHR, I wasn’t arbitrarily adjusting the wrong way for fatigue. I presume that 95% number is where training peaks got it as well. You suggesting it should be the full 182 value?
I agree, if I was fresh it would be a bit higher, but I’m not sure when I could ever do that, either I’ll be training, or tapering for a race and not want to blow my taper on this test. The best I could do really would be if I do it the after a rest day, this was a tempo day on my schedule anyways so it worked as a shorter more intense replacement to do a threshold.
And yes, it is quite the test, sucked a good deal for the last 5 minutes
ADDED NOTE: I haven’t clarified this anywhere, but for what it is worth I am focused on long distance, I am no sprinter. I don’t do a lot of races but in the past few years I have done a couple Ironmans, a couple 50k ultras and one 6-8 hour multisport races. I did a 50k ultra a bit over a month ago. I’m doing a Half Ironman in about 4 weeks, really as a training race and because they don’t host a full near me. Likely will try to get in another multisport/ultra and Ironman by end of this calender year.
Hey yeah I wouldn’t adjust the running HR number down. I know the 95% is a power for 20min FTP test figure, but for running the tests I’ve done with guys show the last 20min test to be a pretty indicative HR for full-on 1 hr race effort. Keep in mind that you lactate threshold does not always equal 1hr pace, but 95% of 20 min pace is pretty close to 1h pace. Def train to the 182 number as LTHR and just use Joe Friel’s zones for however else you want to split things.
The great thing about threshold is it doesn’t particularly matter if your a sprinter or ironman, it more or less normalizes the difference. An long distance athlete will probably have a lower absolute blood lactate value at threshold than a sprinter, but that’s probably beyond the scope of training underneath pro level.
That would mean if my 30k long run I was at a 145 HR, I should have been trying to push it up to 155 minimum, and my tempo runs I should be pushing to 164 minimum!?
I think it’s to be hard to have the legs for that a lot of the time, or at my current fitness level.
I find even with the HRM pro monitor it is almost always to slow to pick up the HR for intervals which is pretty frustrating, so Its almost impossible to run to heart rate on intervals anyways, even if they are a full km in length. In that case I’m basically just going full gas for the duration…
