You have seen/heard this one, right: “Why is my cycling HR not as high as my running HR?”
Last year that was true for me. Now my cycling HR can get as high as my running HR (from when I did run), and can be sustained at those levels for the same periods of time–an hour running v an hour cycling.
However, sometimes I think I have things figured out, and I am dead wrong.
I have two theories:
First, because your cycling muscles are not developed enough to demand enough oxygen to make your heart need to beat faster to supply the blood.
Second, because you haven’t learned that cycling hurts, every stroke, and so you are spinning, but not working near as hard as if you were running.
I’m kind of sold on the second - namely that I am just a wuss and not pushing hard enough. Man, if I could maintain the HR cycling that I can running I would be UNSTOPPABLE!
I would think that if you were lacking in musculocardio development for the cycling muscles you would have higher HR, so not sure about theory one…
I think both your theories are valid. That is, the muscles aren’t strong to demand more blood because we forget that cycling should hurt (in a good way). As we train/suffer more, our muscles become more trained and so they demand more of the oxygen and nutrients in the blood.
Still, I’m pretty sure they don’t give out awards for high heart rates. So, we still need to worry about pedaling harder/faster and at some point just be glad that our hearts have rates.
I find that if I hurt that much on the bike, it costs me on the run. Ditto if my cycling HR gets up into the running zone (about +5 over where it should be) I pay for it later on the bike or the run.
I’m a better cyclist than I am a runner, but I still have to save enough legs to finish.
I’d say both of your theories are feasible and likely. However I also don’t think that the same individual equally trained in both running and cycling would have the same HR in both. I believe this is the case simply because you’re using more total muscles, legs, arms, core etc etc while running than cycling.
Certainly I’m not saying a person Can’t have an equal or higher HR in cycling just that it’s more difficult to pull off and likely an indication you’re not as well trained in running…at least that’s my theory and I’m stickin’ to it…unless convinced otherwise…or paid enough money to say otherwise.
However I also don’t think that the same individual equally trained in both running and cycling would have the same HR in both.
Right. I didn’t mean to imply equivalency. Its just that they are way closer than a year ago–flat out at either, about 5 beats apart.
I’m actually going the other way, my bike HR’s are getting lower and my run HR’s are staying even or slightly higher while I’ve gotten faster in both disciplines
Last year my bike LT was 166 and run LT was 169.
This year my bike LT is 160 and run LT is 173
I came from cycling and I’m a pretty slow runner, maybe I’m not pushing the run tests hard enough.
I’ve been finding it difficult to ride much over 150 consistantly unless I’m racing
Dead on with the HR thing…your heart is basically as lazy as the rest of you.
If you don’t have sufficient metabolic demand (read workload) to require an increased cardiac output to maintain adequate oxygen delivery, your heart isn’t going to pump out a lot of extra blood (partly due to increase HR, partly due to increase in stroke volume) for very long. HR might raise higher than truly needed to maintain normal venous saturations for a little while if you over-use some muscles enough to raise your lactic acid level in your blood-stream…but, I think that HR response is mostly in coordination with your respiratory center stimulation from the extra acid in your blood stream. And the lactic acid that may be produced from muscles being overworked is buffered fairly readily with several buffering systems, so the increase in cardiac output will be short lived. Then consider that requiring such high workloads out of some muscles won’t continue for long before their workload decreases substantially, resulting in less need for more cardiac output, so, the HR isn’t being stimulated to rise.
Short summary: In the long term, cardiac output is mostly due to the response to metabolic demand…the more oxygen your muscles are able to demand, the higher your cardiac output will be. It takes some people a while to get the cycling muscles in sufficient condition to demand their cycling HR raise up to the level of their running HR.