Anyone know why it seems impossible to get heart rate up to ‘normal’ levels if you ride consecutive days without recovery? Or why in general does the heart rate run slower some days than others?
Don’t know the medical reasons why, but it’s just being really really tired and fatigued, kinda like how my ride was today. If you go out there, attempt to hammer and the HR just doesn’t go up to its normal levels and you feel like crap, there’s a good chance you need a break. This is one of the really useful things a HR monitor can confirm for you, overtraining.
It depends. Sometimes, when you are “hammering” and your skeletal muscles are tired, you simply aren’t putting out the wattage that demands a higher cardiac output, so, your HR is lower due to decreased demand for blood flow.
This is one of the reasons many people say training with Power meters is “better” than training with a HR monitor. However, it SEEMS to me that a lack of motivation, lack of adrenal gland contraction, or mental tiredness…whatever else you want to call it, can certainly result in a decreased HR. There is also the possiblity that some of these above reasons results in less overall body heat being generated, so less peripheral (skin) capillary dilation occurs at a given workload, which again results in less cardiac output being “called for” by the body…result, lower HR.
Whatever tool you may use to monitor training, just remember it is a tool, not the whole picture.