Which heart rate monitor?

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Comments

  • Trev The Rev
    Trev The Rev Posts: 1,040
    T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:
    Technology and training methods move on.

    Youre still ignoring the point though. If you are training by or referencing classic borg, you NEED a means of knowing HR.

    You cant talk about RPE when you know nothing about it,or both of the scales applicable

    Borg is only one scale, not one I use. You do not need to know heart rate to train. You don't even need to know power.


    Our disagreement here is not constructive.

    I am no longer replying to any of your posts on any subject. I recommend if you are interested in cycle training you refer to Dr Andrew Coggan.
  • t.m.h.n.e.t
    t.m.h.n.e.t Posts: 2,265
    Can you just not reply to everyones posts instead?

    Thanks

    I would like to see which scale you base RPE on.
  • runpeterson
    runpeterson Posts: 3
    Pross wrote:
    MarkP80 wrote:
    Just thinking there, if you want to monitor HR both on the road and on a turbo then the ideal solution would be ANT+ so if you wanted you could use TrainerRoad via a PC.
    Garmin 500 is expensive, but would a Garmin ANT HRM connected to a watch-type readout suffice? That could be connected to a 500 head unit later, or indeed a pc and a speed/cadence monitor.
    Just a thought.

    MarkP

    You can just use a Garmin ANT+ speed / cadence sensor with a Bryton 20. You should then have a system that will work with TrainerRoad and also has HR capability for about £135 (plus the ANT+ USB stick). This was the setup I was looking at but I've taken a rain check as I would also need a new turbo trainer.


    ANT+ technology is old, not convenient and useful as Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth 4.0). It uses less energy than ant+, and the main thing you don't need any adapter!
    Try, for example, Beets BLU heart rate monitor strap! I am using it for a couple of months and it's really good!
    http://beetsblu.com/
  • Remarkable
    Remarkable Posts: 187
    T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:
    Can you just not reply to everyones posts instead?

    Thanks

    I would like to see which scale you base RPE on.

    :shock:

    He was only giving his opinion. Cyclists were averaging 25 mph+ in races and time trials long before heart rate computers /watches were around. Beryl Burton is a prime example. They raced and trained on 'feel'. A scale that is still used today is Easy, Normal, Hard, Harder, Flat out. :wink:

    I use a relatively cheap Polar HRM watch, and its been the most reliable and accurate I have come across.
  • mamba80
    mamba80 Posts: 5,032
    i have a Polar RS100 HR watch, it has proven to be totally reliable and far far better than a ft4 (which used to lose hr signal) i had and then a Timex Ironman, which was a heap of crxp and i had 2 :(

    either get the Polar mount or use a piece of foam pipe lag to fit to bike.

    ChainReaction do them for £76 i believe but can be had cheaper from various online outlets.
  • me-109
    me-109 Posts: 1,915
    Trev The Rev wrote:
    Heart rate is too variable.
    Yes, between 0 and 220 bpm*.

    Indeed there is nothing wrong with training by feel, but the science of sport discovered that better gains in training can be had more quickly by using real stats, such as HR. Feel can be too subjective with the state of mind interpreting or creating a situation where the effort is outside the range required for effective training.

    * if you take the learned wisdom that max is 220, of course. I'm sure someone will be along to say how they had their HR up to 2xx on such and such a climb.
  • Churnster
    Churnster Posts: 6
    have any other suggestions for the £40-£100 mark.

    If you've got a smartphone download an app (I use sportstracklive) and buy a bluetooth heart rate monitor transmitter to send info to your phone.

    http://www.bhipltd.co.uk/zephyr-hxm-sma ... re=default

    which is selling for £65 ish at the moment.
  • Trev The Rev
    Trev The Rev Posts: 1,040
    Me-109 wrote:
    Trev The Rev wrote:
    Heart rate is too variable.
    Yes, between 0 and 220 bpm*.

    Indeed there is nothing wrong with training by feel, but the science of sport discovered that better gains in training can be had more quickly by using real stats, such as HR. Feel can be too subjective with the state of mind interpreting or creating a situation where the effort is outside the range required for effective training.

    * if you take the learned wisdom that max is 220, of course. I'm sure someone will be along to say how they had their HR up to 2xx on such and such a climb.

    Mine only goes up to 174bpm, once hit 179 but that was 20 years ago.

    Nothing wrong with training by heart rate and feel. You don't lose all feeling and the ability to think when you start using a heart rate monitor. Heart rate is difficult to use for short intervals due to the heart rate lag and also if you are doing hard short intervals you don't really want to be looking at your monitor anyway. For longer efforts heart rate is very good. Yes there is some lag and some variability from day to day, but these variables can tell you a lot anyway.

    Many people (including Dr Andrew Coggan PhD) claim heart rate is of little relevance if you use a power meter. I do not agree. Within reason heart rate reflects effort. You don't ride along at 300 watts at 150bpm then suddenly find it drops to 140bpm, look at power and heart rate files, heart rate follows the power output up and down, but with a delay and it does drift up for the same power over time. It may vary from day to day but again that is interesting data. But in my opinion you should go by feel first and use the monitor as a supplementary device.

    When I use heart rate I use it for longer efforts, I can tell a lot from how it responds in conjunction with power, see Joe Friel's blogs. Heart rate reflects oxygen consumption and how hard your cardio vascular system is working, use it for monitoring that. It only reflects anaerobic efforts slowly, and for very hard efforts there is a long delay. For hard efforts how you feel is best, for other efforts, feel plus heart rate and or power. For very hard shorter efforts it is almost impossible to even see and take in power or heart rate anyway, although the numbers are interesting to look at later.

    Feel always, heart rate if you want and power if you want. But all cycling greats from the past used feel. Some in the 1980s & 90s used feel and heart rate, (Laurent Fignon tried heart rate but preferred not to use it.) Then came power meters and the great cyclists used feel, heart rate and or power.

    You need feel always - you don't need a heart rate monitor or a power meter. And by feel I do not mean you must use the Borg scale, although that is an accepted scale used by most coaches and sports scientists. I prefer to use feel without converting the feelings into numbers.

    Remember it is the training you do followed by the appropriate recovery or rest which improves fitness - the measuring of that training can help you refine your training. In the wrong hands heart rate monitors and power meters can be detrimental. You can train stupid using feel too.

    P.S. The above applies only if the heart rate monitor or power meter is actually working. Feel always works.
  • dzp1
    dzp1 Posts: 54
    I train with power and hr.

    If the power batteries go, or if the PM is off for a service, I still have the data I need to work out TSS etc
    Ditto if I'm out on my MTB or tandem neither of which have a pm
    If HR is very high for the power I interpret that as a signal to go easy.
    If HR is very low for the power I think wow I must have got really fit lately

    Power goes up and down a lot - HR tells me what zone/effort level I'm in at the moment. (I use both)

    My training programme includes some long slow rides alongside higher intensity stuff, HR and power together are a good way of ensuring I stay "in zone".

    I'm of the view that deliberately not collecting data is just silly.. even if you don't use it, its good to have it just in case you want to refer to it later.

    But I'll also say that having trained with power, a lot of sessions would have been under or over the desired intensity if I had blindly watched HR only.

    Finally having said all that the way I prefer to train is by feel, and HR and power are useful backups to confirm that I've got that right, and a much more accurate way of recording efforts and intervals for working out TSS :)
  • Trev The Rev
    Trev The Rev Posts: 1,040
    dzp1 wrote:
    I train with power and hr.

    If the power batteries go, or if the PM is off for a service, I still have the data I need to work out TSS etc
    Ditto if I'm out on my MTB or tandem neither of which have a pm
    If HR is very high for the power I interpret that as a signal to go easy.
    If HR is very low for the power I think wow I must have got really fit lately

    Power goes up and down a lot - HR tells me what zone/effort level I'm in at the moment. (I use both)

    My training programme includes some long slow rides alongside higher intensity stuff, HR and power together are a good way of ensuring I stay "in zone".

    I'm of the view that deliberately not collecting data is just silly.. even if you don't use it, its good to have it just in case you want to refer to it later.

    But I'll also say that having trained with power, a lot of sessions would have been under or over the desired intensity if I had blindly watched HR only.

    Finally having said all that the way I prefer to train is by feel, and HR and power are useful backups to confirm that I've got that right, and a much more accurate way of recording efforts and intervals for working out TSS :)

    Not sure deliberately not collecting data is silly but it is certainly zen.

    Out of interest, riders with power meters who do try to record all power data - how do they account for TSS when the power meter is not working or they train on a bike not fitted with a power meter?
  • jgsi
    jgsi Posts: 5,062
    Back of an envelope job then... skiving on a bike30/ 40 per hour... hurting on a reliability/chaingang 80/90
  • danowat
    danowat Posts: 2,877
    Trev The Rev wrote:
    Out of interest, riders with power meters who do try to record all power data - how do they account for TSS when the power meter is not working or they train on a bike not fitted with a power meter?

    I can only speak for myself, but yes, I use TRIMP to calculate TSS when I am not using a PM
  • dzp1
    dzp1 Posts: 54
    Yes like danowat says, take TSS/TRIMP for a similar route in similar conditions, and multiply that factor by todays trimp. I don't bother with trimp though I just work it out from HR vs racing HR, there's a formula bouncing around the net that seems reasonable and has been shown to be reasonably consistent over a years worth of data.

    TBH when you've been riding with power for a while its also fine to just estimate TSS from RPE. If the odd session is 10 points out or whatever cos your batteries ran out its not going to matter much (but it would if every session was that far out in one direction). For example you'll know that your long slow rides are about 50 or 55 tss per hour, tempo perhaps 65 to 85, sweetspot work perhaps 82 to 95 ish.

    I only one did a 3 hour session at 45 tss/hr. I can't imagine the mental damage that a 30/40 session would do :)

    Anyway thats going a bit off topic.. I'd recommend to the OP a garmin 500 or similar if you can afford it. It will do HR GPS cadence speed plus it will do power later if you get a pm, and having it all in one file is much better than trying to faff about matching up a polar file to a gps iphone file or whatever.
  • Trev The Rev
    Trev The Rev Posts: 1,040
    dzp1 wrote:
    Yes like danowat says, take TSS/TRIMP for a similar route in similar conditions, and multiply that factor by todays trimp. I don't bother with trimp though I just work it out from HR vs racing HR, there's a formula bouncing around the net that seems reasonable and has been shown to be reasonably consistent over a years worth of data.

    TBH when you've been riding with power for a while its also fine to just estimate TSS from RPE. If the odd session is 10 points out or whatever cos your batteries ran out its not going to matter much (but it would if every session was that far out in one direction). For example you'll know that your long slow rides are about 50 or 55 tss per hour, tempo perhaps 65 to 85, sweetspot work perhaps 82 to 95 ish.

    I only one did a 3 hour session at 45 tss/hr. I can't imagine the mental damage that a 30/40 session would do :)

    Anyway thats going a bit off topic.. I'd recommend to the OP a garmin 500 or similar if you can afford it. It will do HR GPS cadence speed plus it will do power later if you get a pm, and having it all in one file is much better than trying to faff about matching up a polar file to a gps iphone file or whatever.

    So the data becomes based partially on estimates... reasonable enough provided the estimates are only a small percentage of the total data.
  • dzp1
    dzp1 Posts: 54
    Pretty much yes. At the end of a ride I'll guess my TSS and its usually within a few percent. But without a power meter I'd never have learned to guess it that accurately in the first place (and I usually train on the same roads which helps). I also test myself when out with a "guess the power number right now" - its good for connecting the brain to what your legs are actually putting out. You get well connected with your effort level when using a pm all the time :)
  • Trev The Rev
    Trev The Rev Posts: 1,040
    dzp1 wrote:
    Pretty much yes. At the end of a ride I'll guess my TSS and its usually within a few percent. But without a power meter I'd never have learned to guess it that accurately in the first place (and I usually train on the same roads which helps). I also test myself when out with a "guess the power number right now" - its good for connecting the brain to what your legs are actually putting out. You get well connected with your effort level when using a pm all the time :)


    A true zen master is so aware of his effort he has no need for numbers.

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