Question. My aerobic max on a bike is 161. (Via 20 min test from Gorods book). As I have stayed the course over the last couple of weeks but I am finding that to stay in extensive aerobic zone which is about 130-140ish seems tough on the legs. My legs seem to be fatigued well before my cardiovascular system feels taxed. Is this because the ME (muscular endurance) has not developed yet? I seem to not have any issues at all with the run protocol. Max aerobic is 175. I never have any issues with getting in the right zone and keeping it for a long tone with little PE.
I believe that you are working under several misconceptions first of all. Go to the training archives on this site and read “Know your heart” and “Cycling heart rates”. See if that doesn’t answer some of your questions…
I have been riding with consistancy for about 2 years. I never really used a HR monitor until lately. Just went by feel. I am thinking I may have been biking with too little effort. Not sure. My legs start to feel a little fatigued after about 15 minutes into the meat of the workout so about 25 min in with warm up. I can get through it but it just seems as though it is proportionally more difficult to maintain desired zones for biking in relation to running. Input would be great.
First time was about a year ago. I read them again. I realize a couple misconceptions you mention. However, if I “tested” the max aerobic individually for both running and biking they each have proportional HR zones for training / efforts based on the scale in the book. It is at home and cant quite remember the exact zones. Anyway!! It looks like I should stay the course and the PE over time with proper HR zone training and sport specific muscle groups will even out over time. Orrrr am I missing a connection somewhere?
I am no guru yet you may want to pay attention to your cadence. You may be pushing to big of gears. You may want to lighten the load and increase your cadence. There are many variables and perceived effort plays a big part in it.
I have found that it usually works is this. Your AT will be basically the same on the bike or the run. The reason that you have different numbers on the bike, is your strenght ability to get to, and hold your AT on the bike. Your best course of action is to do a lot of strenght training(weights and/or hills overgeared). You have the cardiovascular system for running, it doesn’t go away when you ride the bike. You just need to get stronger, which is hard to do if you haven’t been a bike racer your whole life. Bike racers usually have the opposite problem, easier to hold high heart rates on the bike rather than running. Another factor is the gravity factor. It is just easier to hit your AT running because of gravity. Rolling the flats on a bike just takes more power and strenght, but once you have that, your At will look just like it does running. You have to strive for that parity, and not fall in to the trap thinking that you will always have lower heart rates on the bike…