BPM - Turbo VS. Road ride.

suddons
suddons Posts: 67
edited November 2012 in Training, fitness and health
Do other people’s BPM differ from Turbo to Road ride? ( allot )

I tend to see a 15-20 BPM increase on ride road on my average heart rate.
Of course wind, terrain will push your heart rate up –

but I feel like the effort is the same - guess I will not really know without a power reading ?

Comments

  • Alex_Simmons/RST
    Alex_Simmons/RST Posts: 4,161
    suddons wrote:
    but I feel like the effort is the same - guess I will not really know without a power reading ?
    Yes and no.

    Yes in the sense you'll know what power you really are producing, but each scenario has unique characteristics that can result in different perception (and reality) of difficulty as well.

    There is normally a better correlation between HR & power indoors on trainer, than exists outdoors. This is normal as efforts outside tend to be far more variable.
    RST Sport : Coaching - Training Plans - Powermeters -- My blog -- AeroCoach Australia
  • barry_kellett99
    barry_kellett99 Posts: 480
    Yes, around the same when holding steady state lower power levels.
    200w steady on the road - 118-120bpm
    200w steady on the turbo - 130-136bpm (later on in the session when heat becomes an issue)
    http://teammaxbo.blogspot.com/

    Long live the pompino
  • hugo15
    hugo15 Posts: 1,101
    My HR is higher on the road compared to the turbo, somewhere between 10 and 20 BPM I would estimate.

    I also notice that my HR various depending on when I do my turbo sessions. I either ride before work at 6am or after work but before I eat. HR is higher and rises quicker on the early morning sessions. Any ideas why this may be?
  • Alex_Simmons/RST
    Alex_Simmons/RST Posts: 4,161
    hugo15 wrote:
    My HR is higher on the road compared to the turbo, somewhere between 10 and 20 BPM I would estimate.

    I also notice that my HR various depending on when I do my turbo sessions. I either ride before work at 6am or after work but before I eat. HR is higher and rises quicker on the early morning sessions. Any ideas why this may be?
    power output?
    RST Sport : Coaching - Training Plans - Powermeters -- My blog -- AeroCoach Australia
  • hugo15
    hugo15 Posts: 1,101
    Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:
    power output?

    Don't know as I don't have anything to measure power. However, on the turbo I have cadance and speed (as well as HR) and I try to set up the tyre pressure/roller the same each time. For a given speed/cadance/gear my HR is higher in the morning than it is in the evening. I'm using a CycleOps Jet Fluid Pro Turbo if that makes any difference. I did think the temperatue in the garage might be an issue, but I've been in there in all sort of temperatures and I get the same HR results.
  • Dave_P1
    Dave_P1 Posts: 565
    Try making small changes and giving your HR time to rise.
    Change down 1 gear and see what effect it has or adjust the resistance by 1 and see how it goes.
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  • IWearSpandex
    IWearSpandex Posts: 10
    I used to train by heart rate for indoors and outdoors and I saw a similar discrepancy. I found a couple of things for me that affected it.

    Indoors - I had a more steady intensity and pedal cadence. I also never took any breaks, like you would outdoors for stop signs, red lights, turns, etc. It seemed my HR would get up to a steady state level quickly, and then I could push it higher with intensity and time. Bringing it back down was always much more difficult, again because of no breaks in riding. I didn't trust the HR as much when riding indoors. Instead, I now focus on "perceived effort" which is basically intensity on a scale or 1 to 10 (1 is the lowest, 10 the highest). HR was a good gauge for me, but the perceived effort took into account the variables like hydration, nutrition, time of day, etc.

    Outdoors - This is when my HR was much more variable and went up and down based on the conditions and intensity. I could ride a tough hill or windy section and push my HR up to the limit and then work it back down before doing another hill/wind repeat. Training with HR outside seemed much more effective. Now I use the outside HR as a guide to let me know how my body is feeling...higher HR for me means that I am tired and not well hydrated.

    I don't have a power meter, but I use my trusty system of "perceived effort" which works well for me.

    As for the HR variance at different times of day, I had seen a similar difference. I just chalked it up to the body being more tired at the end of the day. With morning rides, I was more fresh and better able to control my HR. With afternoon rides, my body was tired from the day and I would see large swings in HR and even days where it was off the charts high. I know hydration and nutrition play a large part in HR levels and controlling it.

    I hope sharing my experience helps. Lots of good input from everyone here.

    -Brian
    I Wear Spandex
    http://www.iwearspandex.com

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