How to improve your fitness?

sarajoy

Sorry - not really read this thread - but LIDL have cheap (£12.99) heart rate monitors in store today - if you're lucky your local one won't have run out

(the strap's comfy enough, seems to work well - a mate at work who shelled our rather more on his is impressed)

suzyb

Got a heart rate monitor today, the cheap one from lidl :oops:

Just trying to work out how to use it now.

Rich158

rjsterry wrote:

Rich158 wrote:

There's no easy answer to hills other than do more of them and be prepared for it to hurt.

Hills require a well developed lactic system, and a good power to weight ratio. It might also be worth looking at your technique, do you spin or grind? Personally I go for zone4 work on hills, or above 84% MHR and it seems to do the trick

I can confirm without a shadow of doubt and without any calculation that Succomb's Hill put me well into zone 4. Only three minutes of it though, so I guess I need to do some reps :shock: feck!

I have the same fun with Sydenham Hill, for some reason it's about the only hill I can consistently get up to 175 bpm on. Not bad for an old boy

rjsterry

Rich158 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Rich158 wrote:

There's no easy answer to hills other than do more of them and be prepared for it to hurt.

Hills require a well developed lactic system, and a good power to weight ratio. It might also be worth looking at your technique, do you spin or grind? Personally I go for zone4 work on hills, or above 84% MHR and it seems to do the trick

I can confirm without a shadow of doubt and without any calculation that Succomb's Hill put me well into zone 4. Only three minutes of it though, so I guess I need to do some reps :shock: feck!

I have the same fun with Sydenham Hill, for some reason it's about the only hill I can consistently get up to 175 bpm on. Not bad for an old boy

Going up Succomb's, I think I could hear my heart beat - an actual audible noise - at least that's what it felt like. I'll have to try it with the HRM and see what the numbers are, but I know I can get past 180bpm just running up Dover House Road in Putney, so I reckon I might get to 190 or just past.

jimmypippa

Rich158 wrote:

suzyb wrote:

How would you go about improving your lung capacity.

I find when MTBing especially my legs feel OK but I have to stop because I'm puffing and panting.

You probably need more base level endurance work. I have the opposite problem, my CV fitness is OK but I feel I lack power in my legs on hills. That's exactly why I always use a HR monitor, without one I always find I'm working to hard when I'm doing base level work.

When do you start puffing and panting, after a long time in the sadlle or when working hard on hills etc?

Apparently you can increase your lung capacity

http://www.wikihow.com/Increase-Your-Lung-Capacity

good old wiki, there's an answer for anything I've never tried it myself though

Rich, that is my problem: except on steep hills I rarely get remotely out of breath, but my legs have no endurance. I've always been relatively better at longish-term intermediate levels of exertion, fast hillwalking with a pack all day, for example.

Rich158

That's exactly the problem I tend to have. It's taken me a he'll of a lot of high intensity work to feel like I have any power in my legs

jimmypippa

I do sweat like a very sweaty thing though.