can't keep heart rate down...

grant.smith

Hi,

At the weekend I was at Ironman UK event, at the expo there was a Cycle Ops rep who I got speaking to. He told me all about there new products, which look ace by the way. Rather than waist his time I made it clear I can't afford anything he had for sale but he was still happy to talk.

He ended up suggesting I do hill repeats try to keep my heart rate within my fat burning zone. This in turn should increase my power output and result in being quicker up hills.

I tried this thisevening and found it impossible to keep my heart rate so low.

1. What do others think of this as a training strategy
2. Am I aiming to low in terms of heart rate
3. Will it just come down the more I do this set

Thanks for the advice

liversedge

Fat burning zone ... ah sheesh there is a can of worms. Some say slow and steady for a long time and some say sharp and quick is best. This has been debated ad nauseum on the boards here and you won't get a consensus view.

As for keeping heart rate low during hill repeats, well good luck!

My view is spend enough time on your bike and the weight will drop off - regardless of long and slow or sharp and quick workout types.

grant.smith

Well, what I'm looking to improve on is my speed up hills during races, so it's seems to make sence, improve power and in return I should improve speed.

Will this set help achieve my goal?

ut_och_cykla

If you want to learn to ride up hills do it steadily and in a measured way but you are unlikely to burn more fat than reading steadily on the flat: however if you want to get faster up hills you have to learn to ride them FASTER ie not in the fat burning zone but close to bursting point all the way up, repeated several times.

My opinion on the so called fat burning zone (ie low pulse 60-at most 75%) is that its great for beginners or if you have almost unlimited time to train , but that once you are past the beginner stage you should push harder sometimesothrwise you wont improve.

Lose weight slowly by controlling food intake, ride as hard as you can sustain togetehr with longer steadier rides adn you will stay healthy and get fitter.

liversedge

If you want to ride hills faster you need a good power to weight ratio. So, lose weight (if you have any to lose) and increase your maximum sustainable power. Max sustainable is usually at or around your lactate threshold. Which is an excellent place to spend a lot of your training during a a build phase.

BeaconRuth

liversedge wrote:

If you want to ride hills faster you need a good power to weight ratio. So, lose weight (if you have any to lose) and increase your maximum sustainable power. Max sustainable is usually at or around your lactate threshold. Which is an excellent place to spend a lot of your training during a a build phase.

No it isn't. That's another threshold altogether. See the thread on the subject of confusion about lactate threshold.

Ruth

liversedge

really? so at which heart rate will I hit my max sustainable power?

BeaconRuth

I've no idea, Liversedge. But I wouldn't try to identify a specific HR that relates to a maximum sustainable power. HR is very rarely constant when working at high power outputs, so what would be the point?

Ruth

ps. that doesn't mean all use of a HRM is outdated and a waste of time as you implied the other day.

scapaslow

If you do hard efforts on hill repeats then most likely you will be working at or close to (perhaps even exceeding) your current max HR which is not what you want. It will improve your speed up the hills though and you will burn fat.

Alex_Simmons/RST

scapaslow wrote:

If you do hard efforts on hill repeats then most likely you will be working at or close to (perhaps even exceeding) your current max HR which is not what you want. It will improve your speed up the hills though and you will burn fat.

By definition, one cannot exceed their maximum heart rate.

And working very hard like that is most likely fuelled nearly totally by glycogen sources. Not that it matters. Eventually you have to refuel somehow.

Forget about "fat burning". It's a mythical and meaningless concept probably dreamed up by some marketing bozo.

scapaslow

Surely max hr is a notional best estimated value and changes over time with increase/decrease in fitness and age? Its not a fixed constant.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Maximal has a specific meaning.

If you have a notional value (determined by whatever means) which can be exceeded in reality, then it is the notional value that is wrong.

liversedge

Ruth,

Heart rate like cadence, speed, power, altitude, temperature, hydration, lactate accumulation, oxygen consumption, heartrate variability, weight, body fat percentage is important. You don't fly a plane looking at a single instrument.

Power based training is certainly the current state of the art for club cyclists, no doubt something even better will come along. It is certainly affordable if the cost of the typical best selling carbon bike is anything to go by. Training with a HRM alone is just as effective today as it was yesterday.

Not that any of this is at all relevant to the OP who wants to get better at climbing.

EDIT: I read the thread you referred to and agreed 100% with it. Did you? For clarity, I am talking about sustainable power. sustainable. Did you catch the word sustainable.