Cardio training for health

Druid \'64

I want to get my fitness levels up and as a "newbie" again (5 years since i last rode) i just want a little help. I have a few nice rides near home and i am curently doing a 9.5mile loop on the road so i can keep a steady pace. I don't want to overdo things as my fitness is quite low but its getting better. My time for the loop is about an hour - 65 mins last month 55mins now but it varies.
44 year old male
my zones:- are 75% to 89%
135-157
These are the stats of my last ride and it had a bit of an offroad detour, an extra half mile
max 176
ave 146
44 mins in the zone
14 above
8 below

I try to do this every other day but thats not quite how it works out :oops:
Are these training zones going to help? is there any other type of ride that will help?

My resting heart rate is about 66

robertpb

First looking at your max heart rate it looks as if you have taken the 220 minus your age to arrive at this.

Using this method mine would be 161 but it's not it's 184, so therefore if you had used this method all your training figures could be wrong.

Other methods I've looked at have come up with my max being 177, at the end of the day there is nothing like a proper test.

Secondly the you have 8 mins below 75% that does not give enough warm up and recovery time which should be below 70%, preferably 60-65%, I usually do 20mins in this zone at the end of a ride or workout. I then on the rest days do 30-45 mins in this zone.

Building fitness is as much about recovery as doing the hard graft.

Measuring your resting heart rate over a period of time will tell you how the fitness is coming along, if it rises it can also tell you that you're over doing it, but 4-6 beats can usually be ignored.

mea00csf

I'm not the biggest fan of heart rate monitors, i personally can't see the use for cycling.

As you say you're not very fit, the problem you have is that obtaining a max heart rate to make your data meaningful, you have to do a max heart rate test. As someone who isn't very fit it would probably not be a good idea to do this test unsupervised.

I would personally try to keep your rides at a pace where you could hold a conversation. This will be a good pace to build endurance levels.

Throw in a couple of rides where, after warming up you keep the pace higher (so that if someone asked you a question you'd be able to give a one word answer, but not much else) for 10 minutes or so, before having a 5min recovery. Do 2 or 3 blocks of these. As you get better you can lengthen the interval, shorten the recovery etc. This builds up speed.

These are just sessions that i use, they're loosely based around principals used to improve running but seemed to have translated well for me!

rhyko7

its a very debatable subject even between the leading scientists and coaches

as said above the 220 minus your age doesnt work for everyone. to give you an idea of your zones if you dont want to do a max HR test, below 80% you are not breathing heavy and can just about hold a conversation. 80 % is the cusp at which you start breathing more heavily. with your Hr monitor whilst exercising you will find that you Hr will go down a few beats if you take some big deep breathe air intakes in.
if you go as fast as you can for 50 -60 mins the average will probably be about 80%

from all i have read you need to do the majority of your training towards your aerobic fitness, this involves 45 minutes onwards staying between 60 -77% heart rate. once you go over 77% you start going in towards anearobic effort, its ok to go a few % over for short periods tho. at first you will find this slow (few weeks), but after a while you start going quicker with the same heart rate.

from experience i have found the greatest benefit of sub 80 % heart rate training to be hugely incresed endurance.

then once a week work on your anearobic fitness in intervals, mountain biking is ideal for this this involves getting your heart rate really high for short periods of time.

some argue that you shouldnt do any anearobic exercise whilst working on your aerobic period, but again this is always being debated.

unless your an elite athlete i would advise doing both types but the majority being aerobic


the general philosophy is that the aerobic fitness is your foundation, and the anearobic fitness is built on top of this. with high arobic fitness you can basically go a lot quicker with a lot less effort as your body is using oxygen & fat for energy rather than you carbohydrates which can depleat quite quickly at high intensity.

this is what i have learnt from scouring the internet over the past few months

Druid \'64

Sorry to take so long to respond. Thank all for the input,
First robertpb
the max i quoted(176) is the figure from my last ride, i have hit 179 about a week before while going flat out so the formula is only a guide anyway. The area where i live is not realy going to give me more than a mile of flat unless i stay on a busy road but i can add some small loops as a warm- up.
mea00csf

try to keep your rides at a pace where you could hold a conversation

This is how a lot of my ride is but as there are a few hills i do get to the one or two words level a few times

Throw in a couple of rides where, after warming up you keep the pace higher (so that if someone asked you a question you'd be able to give a one word answer, but not much else) for 10 minutes or so, before having a 5min recovery. Do 2 or 3 blocks of these. As you get better you can lengthen the interval, shorten the recovery etc. This builds up speed.

rhyko7
The main thing i am getting from your info is if i cut back to 80% i am more in the zone, this is good for me as it will slow me down and take longer to do the ride so longer in the zone.
thank all, its good info for me.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Considering my age (35 going on 36), my weight (90Kg) and my relatively little exercise since the end of June (i.e. lost the 10 mile daily commute plus the physically active job, do well to get out on the bike 3x per week now), perhaps I should be worried that:-

My resting heart rate in computer chair is ~60
Standing up and walking around flat is ~80
Cycling at 30kph in a 61" gear on flatish road is ~150
Cycling up a 10% incline of ~1Km (Chalk Hill) has been as high as 208! :shock: