Would like a LTHR Best Guess

DaveLeeNC

I'm a 62 year old male just getting back (6 days so far) into pedaling for fitness purposes. I doubt that a real LTHR test would be meaningful right now as 10 years is a long time away from pedaling and, right now, I would run into leg fatigue only partially related to my cardio state.

But I do know what my "can talk in four word sentences" HR is (150'ish, BTW). For most folks how does this heartrate relate to their LTHR?

Thanks.

dave

hugo15

I used the Joe Friel test to get an aprroximiation of my LTHR. Basically you do a 30 minute time trial and take the average HR over the final 20 minutes. The link below explains more.

http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2010/05/qu ... -with-hear t-rate-power-and-pace.html

DaveLeeNC

hugo15 wrote:

I used the Joe Friel test to get an aprroximiation of my LTHR. Basically you do a 30 minute time trial and take the average HR over the final 20 minutes. The link below explains more.

http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2010/05/qu ... -with-hear t-rate-power-and-pace.html

Thanks for the comment, but that is exactly 'the test' that I wonder about being applicable to me in my current state. Right now I think this test is more an assessment of my legs than of my cardio-vascular system. At least that was my sense of things when I tried it once (on day 2 of my 'return') and basically folded 15 minutes into the 30 minute (total) test.

dave

amaferanga

In that case why not just ride your bike for a few weeks until you think you can do the test properly? If you're just getting back to cycling after a 10 year break I doubt knowing your lactate threshold HR is going to make much difference for a while.

DaveLeeNC

amaferanga wrote:

In that case why not just ride your bike for a few weeks until you think you can do the test properly? If you're just getting back to cycling after a 10 year break I doubt knowing your lactate threshold HR is going to make much difference for a while.

Simple curiosity (as opposed to being the basis of a training plan). Although it may not be totally relevant to my case, the difference between LTHR and a '4 word conversation workload' seems interesting and answerable (and may or may not be relatively consistent between different trained cyclists).

dave

DaveLeeNC

FWIW, I slogged out (and finished this time) a Friel-style LTHR test on an indoor cycle today. For me it would appear that the difference is around 4-5 bpm. I would guess that this difference will get larger when (if) my fitness (and pain tolerance) improves.

dave

inseine

Without appearing rude, but at your age and after such a long lay off I'd really question the need to do this 6 days into a return to cycling. Not useful and possibly dangerous. Just riding your fitness will come on in leaps without having to go near LTH.
The 5 beats differnce just highlights your unfitness. Just enjoy your bike.

DaveLeeNC

FWIW, my fitness history is much different than my cycling history. While I am badly overweight, for a good part of the 2nd half of last year I was running 3-4 miles two to three times per week (between injury layoffs - haven't run since Nov). So the hearttrate and effort is not something that my body is totally unaccustomed to (and I am a former 2:40 marathon runner - but that was LONG ago).

But I was surprised at how my legs reacted to the different exercise (and further surprised at how much that changed over just a week). But I am who I am and having this information is something that I wanted to know. I have a plan that I will be following where the number matters, but right now all that really matters is losing weight and knowing your LTHR is hardly critical to that goal.

dave