Is HRM God

pimptovimto

Hi I am qiute new to road cycling and have found that I appear to have a very high heart rate, I am not an out of shape person but not really a cardio trainer. I have an HRM and very often on the hills I steadily have a heart rate of 160+ zone 4.5 according to the HRM. However this does not seem to bother me to much and I can sustain this heart rate quite happliy, I thought yesterday that my HRM might be broken because I called a friend at the top of a hill and was able to hold a conversasion with her without problem.

What do you think is my HRM broken or is HR not as important as I think it is.

If anyone has personal success/advice on training with an HRM I would appreciate that big time

Thanks

PV

beatsystem

Perhaps your HR has changed as you got fitter. You need to retest to establish new zones.

hamstrich

I don't think you have anything to worry about. There are big physiological differences between individuals which mean it's often difficult to compare this sort of data with others. As beatsystem says, you might want to consider modifying your zones to correspond better to the level of perceived effort.

Alex_Simmons/RST

why do you think that is high? or that it matters?

fuzzynavel

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

why do you think that is high? or that it matters?

it's not that high! That would be about Fat loss zone for most healthy people.
If I don't see at least 188bpm on the hills then I am not working hard enough.

Bronzie

fuzzynavel wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

why do you think that is high? or that it matters?

it's not that high! That would be about Fat loss zone for most healthy people.
If I don't see at least 188bpm on the hills then I am not working hard enough.

And for me, 160+ is red-lining.

You cannot generalise HR response in individuals - that is why the "220 minus your age" formula can never be anything more than a very rough guesstimate of what your actual maximum heart rate is.

To the OP: your HRM is probably setting your training zones from the above formula or a variant of it. Unless you know your actual maximum HR, you can't set your training zones correctly. But actually acertaining your true max HR is not that straight forward - there have been loads of posts on this forum on this subject, so a bit of searching will show you that it's a bit hit and miss at times.

Some people (notably Joe Friel author of "Cyclists Training Bible") advocate using "Lactate Threshold Heart Rate" instead to set training zones. This is basically the average heart rate you achieve during a 1 hour maximal effort (ie time trial).

But you should also note that heart rate fluctuates with dehydration, tiredness etc etc so whilst it can be a useful guide, you really shouldn't let it rule your training.

vorsprung

pimptovimto wrote:

I steadily have a heart rate of 160+ zone 4.5 according to the HRM. ...
What do you think is my HRM broken or is HR not as important as I think it is.

The preset values for maximum heart rate according to age are usually wrong for bike fit people

For instance I am 44 yrs old so my max should be

220-43= 177

However it is more like 190

I just tell the cheap HRM I have that I am 30 years old

Pokerface

vorsprung wrote:

pimptovimto wrote:

I steadily have a heart rate of 160+ zone 4.5 according to the HRM. ...
What do you think is my HRM broken or is HR not as important as I think it is.

The preset values for maximum heart rate according to age are usually wrong for bike fit people

For instance I am 44 yrs old so my max should be

220-43= 177

However it is more like 190

I just tell the cheap HRM I have that I am 30 years old

And I am 38 - and have never seen my HR go over 178 absolute MAX on my HR monitor (on a bike).

Just varies from person to person

liversedge

big strong heart == low max or a puny little humming bird heart == high max hr


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pimptovimto

Clear as mud but thanks to you all.


I know its not a biggy to you guys but later this year I am doing a 100mile event and then next year I would like to do a tour/race maybe 2500 miles(this is a bit of a dream at the moment)

Is there a direct improvement you can see or should be able to meassure as you cycle more e.g. as your muscles get stronger and more used to cycling should you see your average heart rate in a ride drop as you have to put in less effort, or is there no corrolation between the two and I just need to get out and keep riding and not worry about it.


PV

Bronzie

Not sure what is not clear?

Your HRM is probably using your age (if you've entered it during setup) to set your training zones, but this is flawed. Find out what your maximum heart rate actually is by testing and set your training zones from there, but be aware of the limitations of training using heart rate.

Max heart rate suggested test protocol:
http://www.timetrialtraining.co.uk/S6Ma ... eTests.htm

Heart rate zones:
http://www.timetrialtraining.co.uk/S7Tr ... ensity.htm

As for noticing improvements, well all things being equal, average speeds over the same route for the same level of effort (ie average heart rate) should increase over time as your cycling fitness improves.

But you certainly don't need to train with an HRM to ride 100 miles - just get out and clock up the miles and look into training by heart rate more when you feel that you need to progress further.

Alex_Simmons/RST

pimptovimto wrote:

I know its not a biggy to you guys but later this year I am doing a 100mile event and then next year I would like to do a tour/race maybe 2500 miles(this is a bit of a dream at the moment)

Is there a direct improvement you can see or should be able to meassure as you cycle more e.g. as your muscles get stronger and more used to cycling should you see your average heart rate in a ride drop as you have to put in less effort, or is there no corrolation between the two and I just need to get out and keep riding and not worry about it.

Cool goal.

Essentially, HR on its own does not provide much indication of fitness changes, beyond noticing that your resting/waking HR drops over time in the initial stages. But resting HR will eventually plateau before fitness improvements do.

In training, what you are seeking to do is elicit positive physiological adaptations and this is best achieved by gradually increasing the workload.

Workload is a function of duration and intensity. HR is just a method of providing an indication of the intensity and if it has a timer, then it provides an indication of workload. I say an indication as intensity really is best measured in terms of power output. As fitness improves your power increases (power at lactate threshold lifts) but your HR pretty much remains the same (it is insensitive to such changes in fitness).

Of course without measuring power output the only way to notice this is improvements in overall speed for the same relative intensity. Speed however isn't a good guide as there are so many other things that can influence it. The best way to eliminate many of those uncontrolled variables is to time your self up a steep hill. In that way you'll have a pretty clear cut idea as to whether your fitness is improving. See here for some more on that:
http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/articl ... ting-19175

fuzzynavel

Bronzie wrote:

fuzzynavel wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

why do you think that is high? or that it matters?

it's not that high! That would be about Fat loss zone for most healthy people.
If I don't see at least 188bpm on the hills then I am not working hard enough.

And for me, 160+ is red-lining.

You cannot generalise HR response in individuals - that is why the "220 minus your age" formula can never be anything more than a very rough guesstimate of what your actual maximum heart rate is.

.

I know exactly what you mean...i should have elaborated a little..
I am a little bit of a freak....the 220 - age thing works for me...I am 30 and the highest heart rate I have seen this year is 190bpm...I don't have any previous years data so have no idea how well I fit the profile.