Garmin HRM.

golfergmc

I have a Garmin HRM and it has five heart rate zones, I am doing 2x20min intervals on the turbo and am wondering what zone I should be in for the 20 minutes.

SBezza

It is hard to go by a zone, they are done at a simialr level of the max effort you could do for 1 hour.

If you haven't got a powermeter it becomes a little more difficult to get the right effort, though using PE is the best way.

It maybe you have the do the first couple as a trial and error exercise. You HR will rise throughout the 20 mins if you gauge the effort right, but I would be aiming for your HR to be perhaps around 95% of maxHR by the end of the 20 mins.

golfergmc

The way i`m doing it at the minute my heart rate goes above may max.

SBezza

golfergmc wrote:

The way i`m doing it at the minute my heart rate goes above may max.

It can't do, your max is just that your max. The only way you will ever know what your MaxHR is, is by doing a maxHR test, or go by the highest you have seen whilst riding.

golfergmc

By doing my max by formula it`s 181bpm but have went to 191bpm on garmin, so should I be aiming by the end of the 20min to get it to 191bpm by gradually getting there.

SBezza

Forget the formulas, they are generally crap to be honest.

I would imagine your MaxHR is probably higher than 191bpm, but if that is the maximum you have seen use this.

If you can do 2 x 20 mins at that sort of level you are probably doing them right.

golfergmc

191bpm is the highest i`ve seen and at 39 i don`t think it could go much further, its just by about 15min in at 180bpm I feel as if i`m going to collapse and really struggle to finish the last 5 min.

jonmack

Would be worth doing a proper max HR test so you can map out your zones properly. Maybe try 20 mins at 175bpm if 180 is hurting that much, although as has been mentioned in the past if you're staying at the same heart rate for the duration of the interval then your power output will have decreased throughout the interval.

a_n_t

try using speed or cadence, whilst not perfect it's better for a constant effort than HR. Make sure you do a roll down test everytime though.

As an example here's my 2x20 effort from last night

http://tpks.ws/clIe

As you can see power stays in and around 200W but HR goes from 164 to 178. Speed stays stable too so i'd use that if I was you.

mrwibble

Zone 4 would be good, out of interest, I think I read on here you should set the HR to 6 zones instead of 5. The sixth zone being practically 98 to 100 per cent

golfergmc

mrwibble wrote:

Zone 4 would be good, out of interest, I think I read on here you should set the HR to 6 zones instead of 5. The sixth zone being practically 98 to 100 per cent

Did`nt know you could do that, thanks.
Going to do a test tonight to see my max bpm, wish me luck :?