Evidence of increasing fitness?

chrisaonabike

Background....

A year in, and little by little, I'm getting faster. Faster on the hills, faster on the flat. Less tired after more miles. I ride with HRM all the time, and I've noticed that I can now sustain a higher HR than I could at the beginning of the summer. I can now ride for quite a while at around 150 bpm, which is definitely new. I have a regular hill, that I aim to get to the top of with HR at about 160, and then sustain >150 on the flat bit at the top (about a mile) before the descent where I recover.

Question...

As I continue to get fitter, will I find that I can sustain a given high HR with less perceived effort, for longer, or will the HR required for a given "power" also decrease.

I put 'power' in quotes, since I can't measure power directly, or indeed reliably, but I mean something along the lines of "up that familiar hill in typical conditions in typical time". I know that's terribly vague, but I'm just curious as to whether I'll achieve lower HR for given output, as well as the ability to sustain high HR for longer.

I'm 50, if that's relevant at all.

imposter2.0

You would be better measuring your road speed over a given distance, rather than your HR for a given effort. HR is not a reliable measure of fitness. Time/distance is though, assuming conditions are similar.

Allza

I have found a bit of both to be honest. I've been riding about 18 months and found my cruising hr has come down to around 130 whilst power has gone up. On max efforts of say 5mins I've found I can sustain a HR of 180 for longer, where as before I would only last a minute. I also managed to reach a higher heart rate. I can now reach 185 where as before I could only hit 181! Not saying that my max has increased but bring fitter means I can get closer to it.

Barbarossa

My HR drops as I get fitter! This spring, over 2 months, my CP20 went from 295W to 330W, but my HR for these efforts dropped from 160 to 150.

OverTheHillAt21

Normally you should detect increased fitness by your HR dropping at the same PE. So although you might also find you can sustain a high HR for longer periods that should match an increased speed too, assuming we are talking about aerobic effort.

dw300

Threshold is threshold no matter what power you put out. The PE will be the same, but the power you can put out will be more. Or, what OverTheHill said ^

99thmonkey

Just use strava and everytime you get a PB over the same route you are getting fitter / faster I think

kajjal

HR is more for setting your performance level. You should find as you get fitter you are faster at a given HR.

diamonddog

OverTheHillAt21 wrote:

Normally you should detect increased fitness by your HR dropping at the same PE.

^^This

markhewitt1978

Yeah as I understand it your heart rates remain the same but your heart increases in size / gets more efficient therefore pumps more blood per beat. Which is why resting heart rate decreases.

Alex_Simmons/RST

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

Background....

A year in, and little by little, I'm getting faster. Faster on the hills, faster on the flat. Less tired after more miles. I ride with HRM all the time, and I've noticed that I can now sustain a higher HR than I could at the beginning of the summer. I can now ride for quite a while at around 150 bpm, which is definitely new. I have a regular hill, that I aim to get to the top of with HR at about 160, and then sustain >150 on the flat bit at the top (about a mile) before the descent where I recover.

Question...

As I continue to get fitter, will I find that I can sustain a given high HR with less perceived effort, for longer, or will the HR required for a given "power" also decrease.

I put 'power' in quotes, since I can't measure power directly, or indeed reliably, but I mean something along the lines of "up that familiar hill in typical conditions in typical time". I know that's terribly vague, but I'm just curious as to whether I'll achieve lower HR for given output, as well as the ability to sustain high HR for longer.

I'm 50, if that's relevant at all.

Whether or not you actually measure it, sustainable power output, typically expressed relative to body mass (i.e. W/kg) for duration(s) of relevance to your cycling goals, is the only measure of fitness that matters.

HR can be used as a guide to intensity of effort, but is not as a measure of fitness in itself. If you can't put out more power, you are not fitter, no matter what your heart does.

If you don't actually measure power, then the next best things are proxies for power, which usally involves a speed measurement of some kind, but only a speed measurement where the relationship between speed and power is less susceptible to variations due to things like environmental conditions and variable terrain.

Examples of this are speed up a steeper hill climb, or wheel speed on an indoor trainer for which you are able to reliable set the resistance load with great consistency, and which is not overly affected by temperature induced variability in resistance.

I've previously recommended hillclimbs as a way to track fitness changes, as explained here:
http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/t ... ting-19175

but keep in mind that wind can still significantly affect the hill climbing speed for a given power output.

Wheel speed on a trainer may or may not be reliable, a lot depends on your trainer and the consistency of your set up. Rollers using same tyres and air pressures are probably the most consistent, although large changes in body mass would have some impact on results.

elderone

Chris,I know what you mean as I think the same.I know on my local hills I can now get up them quicker(not much mind) with lower HR and then just carry on my ride without having to go steady to settle down again.
Also I can hold a higher heart rate for longer so YES, as you get fitter then you will be able to sustain the Hr for longer.
I know I,m much fitter and hopefully will continue to get even fitter.

cyco2

It's very difficult to replicate conditions to test for fitness but this way has the least variables in it. Get a good high heart rate and then measure the time to a recovery rate, may be 80bpm. I have no idea if this works because I am not interested in my level of fitness other than how I perform against fellow riders after training sessions.

Alex_Simmons/RST

cyco2 wrote:

It's very difficult to replicate conditions to test for fitness but this way has the least variables in it. Get a good high heart rate and then measure the time to a recovery rate, may be 80bpm. I have no idea if this works because I am not interested in my level of fitness other than how I perform against fellow riders after training sessions.

All that tells you is the rate of HR change which most certainly has a lot of variables that will influence it. It is not a measure of fitness.

cyco2

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

All that tells you is the rate of HR change which most certainly has a lot of variables that will influence it. It is not a measure of fitness.

So what you are saying is that exercise does not have an effect on your heart condition. I.e. Resting rate reduces and a lower rate is recorded for a given effort per load ?

ric/rstsport

Exercise, does do those things. However,

1) other things also do that (e.g. exhaustion)
2) changes in ambient temperature
3) cadence (but obviously not for the resting part)
4) altitude
etc

additionally, the rate of change that occurs from increasing fitness isn't always the same (i.e., if you resting HR in an untrained state is 60 b/min and your resting HR drops to 55 b/min this could be a different amount of fitness change than when your HR drops to 50 b/min from 55). Furthermore, you can continue increasing your fitness with no change in resting HR, and during exercise it hasn't told you what has happened to your stroke volume.

Ric

Alex_Simmons/RST

cyco2 wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

All that tells you is the rate of HR change which most certainly has a lot of variables that will influence it. It is not a measure of fitness.

So what you are saying is that exercise does not have an effect on your heart condition. I.e. Resting rate reduces and a lower rate is recorded for a given effort per load ?

No, I have not said that at all. All I have said is that it is not a measure of fitness.

e.g. when we go from generally unfit to reasonably fit, it's normal for resting HR to fall. But once it falls, what then? It tells you nothing about how much fitter you are, nor whether you are improving or not. You can readily increase sustainable power output and have no change in resting HR.

As for HR per given load, well how are you measuring the load? The only load worth measuring is power, and if you can't put out more power, it matters not what your HR does, you are not fitter.

GiantMike

Coming back from 5-6 weeks off the bike, my HR is higher for the same power than it was. Previously I'd be around 164bpm at the end of a 10minx300W interval, now I'm up at 174ish. My resting HR is probably a couple of bpm higher. BUT, everybody is different and HR is very personal.

cyco2

GiantMike wrote:

Coming back from 5-6 weeks off the bike, my HR is higher for the same power than it was. Previously I'd be around 164bpm at the end of a 10minx300W interval, now I'm up at 174ish. My resting HR is probably a couple of bpm higher. BUT, everybody is different and HR is very personal.

So, what you are saying is that the lack of exercise has had an effect on your heart rate. Which would indicate that you would not be able to perform as well as you did before.

PhunkyPhil

99thmonkey wrote:

Just use strava and everytime you get a PB over the same route you are getting fitter / faster I think

Or you just rode a section with a stronger tail wind to the previous times. Or your using a crappy iPhone which I s prone to erros and it gave you a faster time.

Strava can't be reliably used to track fitness.

Team4Luke

1. you will be riding faster for the same HR (approx withing a few bpm either way) = faster
2. you will be able to ride that bit harder as you get used to suffering harder efforts and be able to hold slightly higher HR than previous = faster

Alex_Simmons/RST

Team4Luke wrote:

1. you will be riding faster for the same HR (approx withing a few bpm either way) = faster
2. you will be able to ride that bit harder as you get used to suffering harder efforts and be able to hold slightly higher HR than previous = faster

1. Riding faster can be due to factors other than fitness, let alone HR response.

2. I typically sustain higher HRs at same perceived effort level (suffering) when less fit than when I am fitter, but this is not a consistent HR response for me.