EPOC??

SteveR_100Milers

Whats all this about? and does it have any credance?

http://www.firstbeattechnologies.com/in ... page_2=109

danseur

Looks like a rather complicated way of assessing recovery time.

Correct me if I'm missing something, but it's just a measure of how long it takes your heart rate to come down at the end of a training session.

NJK

SteveR_100Milers wrote:

Whats all this about? and does it have any credance?

http://www.firstbeattechnologies.com/in ... page_2=109

Excess post exercise oxygen consumption.

The total oxygen consumed after exercise in excess of baseline levels. Usually measured in a lab environment as you need to know oxygen uptake during exercise and recovery period.

SteveR_100Milers

Well I read it as a post exercise measure of the level of exercise (volume x intensity), so whilst I suppose you are right its a measure of recovery, I read it as a link between effective exercise intensity and measured HR; i.e. a bit more sophisticated than simply training between an upper and lower HR. Obviously it's written by HRM manufacturers trying to justify their [product in the face of power as a means of measuring effort, but that does not necassarily mean it's incorrect or not of any use.

NJK

Not sure about the relevance with heart rate monitors unless they say you can measure it using a heart rate which obviously you can't as it requires oxygen uptake measurement. The term EPOC has replaced the 'oxygen debt' term. You basically have a fast and slow recovery component. Slower after higher intensity exercise which takes longer to get to baseline levels.

danseur

Apologies, I wasn't intending to come across as strongly as maybe I did.

The HR graphs don't seem to make sense to me. Easy walking for 45 minutes shouldn't give you a HR of 170. Easy walking should be well below lactate threshold so I can't see how walking for two minutes or two hours would make any difference to a measure of oxygen debt. Similarly the second and third HR graphs are identical but the EPOC curves are dramatically different.

Obviously they have knocked up some examples for the website and they can't be interpreted as accurate experimental traces but I don't think that these pictures justify anything worth getting too excited about. I agree with your interpretation that this is an area under the heart rate curve but I don't agree with their explanation that it measures something more complex.

Like most of the people here I'm always looking for new and more expensive ways of cycling but on the basis of this, I'm not going to try and sneak a new bit of kit past my wife!

Johnpwr

Having used a Suunto T6 for about a year, I can say that I ignore the EPOC figure as it is virtually useless as a meaningful measure. It is merely an aerobic measure and my Sunday club runs that run to 4+ hours don't ever register as anything over a 3, whereas a 20 minute time trial is a 5 every time. Now this may be appropriate, but my recovery times for these 2 events leave me wondering what the point of it is

My feeling is that it would be useful for somebody that was starting out in the 'get fit' business as a way to help prevent overtraining and encourage suitable rest and recovery periods, but if you are reasonably fit then it doesn't seem to be of much use.

SteveR_100Milers

I don't think its about recovery time, or is it? My understanding is that the "TE" is not simply HR x time, its a correlation between HR and EPOC. In other words, the algorithm is extrapolating your instantaneous HR and average HR thus far to an effective EPOC if you stopped at that point. EPOC itself is obviously not measured.

Having used a Suunto T6 for about a year, I can say that I ignore the EPOC figure as it is virtually useless as a meaningful measure. It is merely an aerobic measure and my Sunday club runs that run to 4+ hours don't ever register as anything over a 3, whereas a 20 minute time trial is a 5 every time. Now this may be appropriate, but my recovery times for these 2 events leave me wondering what the point of it is

Have you tried following the Training Coach? Did it work at all?

Johnpwr

I suppose that it depends on what you hope/expect that the EPOC/TE is going to give you. My thought was that it was a measure of ride difficulty, but it isn't.

As for the Training coach, that doesn't come with the T6, it's a separate piece of software that you have to buy, although perhaps I'll try the evaluation again in the autumnwinter during a more controlled period.

SteveR_100Milers

I'm reading through some of this which might be interesting (to Suunto owners anyway )

http://www.ronjones.org/Weblinks/EPOC&Intervals.html

http://fitstop-lab.blogspot.com/2008/04 ... ffect.html