Turbo training help

dinyull

I set the turbo up earlier this week and did my 1st 20/20 interval session last night - well attempted! After 15mins in first interval I was spent, had gone off too fast. I had an easy 10 min warm up prior to the 15 mins.

I know intervals are HARD, this wasn't a case of me giving in - my legs just had nothing.

I have been seriously thinking of getting a HRM and think this would have prevented me going off too fast, but having read the forum this morning it seems like a lot of folk don't think HRM is that important and I'm now a bit confused. I don't have a cadence sensor either so I'm only going off feel when on the turbo.

So, would a HRM help me or is there something else that would be of benefit?

Cheers

napoleond

Funnily enough, despite having a power meter I mainly train by HR, just using the power meter to set the initial pace.
You can pick up a heart rate monitor really cheaply. Do it! It'd definitely help on the longer intervals.
Just be mindful of s phenomenon called 'cardiac drift' (Google it).

Good luck!

ai_1

HR is very useful for pacing. A lot of people seem to have started ridiculing it but I haven't seem a really good argument against it yet.
I've used HR as a reference since I started running and cycling and I find it invaluable. It's worth being aware that HR does fluctuate a little from session to session depending on fatigue, heat, illness, dehydration, alcohol consumption, etc. But it's these are usually very small fluctuations and it doesn't undermine the usefulness of the device.

For an indication of consistency: Myself and a friend used to regularly ride together on Sunday mornings and both used HR monitoring. It is consistent enough that I could always predict his HR within 2 or 3 beats based on my own. Usually his would be 8 to 10 beats higher for the same effort unless one of us had been drinking the night before in which case the drinker's HR could be anything from 5 to 15BPM higher than usual. If one of us was doing a lot of training for an event or slacking off for an extended period that would be visible in the HR difference on our Sunday rides. Whatever the gap, it would be consistent during a ride and from one to the next. While this is just interesting and not hugely useful it does show that HR can be a useful tool to monitor effort.

The first time I did a multisport race (I don't bike race) I was worried before the start to note that my HR was way above normal and thought maybe my HRM battery was dying or something. I've since become accustomed to pre race HR elevation. It's just nerves or being "psyched-up" and I seem to perform better when this is high. After the first minute or two this is replaced by normal effort induced HR and I can pace accordingly with confidence. I have regularly done fast training or race rides and runs using HR for guidance and as a result avoided bonking and reached the finish with just enough left to cross the line or reach home. Having worn the HR in a series of 3 sprint Duathlons this summer and pushed as hard as I could in all 3 I noticed later that my average HR for each leg was practically identical in all three. 171BPM for the first run, 168BPM for the cycle and 172BPM for the 2nd run. I wasn't running and riding to a heart rate for these, it was an occassional glance at most. For short intervals HR isn't very useful since it lags effort slightly but for longer intervals where you'll reach steady state and stay there for minutes or more then it's ideal.

BeaconRuth

Dinyull wrote:

I have been seriously thinking of getting a HRM and think this would have prevented me going off too fast, but having read the forum this morning it seems like a lot of folk don't think HRM is that important and I'm now a bit confused. I don't have a cadence sensor either so I'm only going off feel when on the turbo.

So, would a HRM help me or is there something else that would be of benefit?

It sounds as though you haven't got any way of measuring your effort or work in any way at all. Is that right? Not even rear wheel speed or cadence?

You do need to be able to measure SOMETHING objective but you don't have to have an expensive device. A cheap bike computer measuring rear wheel speed would do - or cadence if you take note of which gear you're using. Without something of that kind how are you going to set off at a slightly easier pace so that you can get through a full 20-minute effort next time instead of setting off too hard?

TBH I'd go for measuring speed or cadence before going for a HRM. Then you can at least do repeatable training sessions and can grade them moderate/hardish/hard/very hard or something like that based on feel.

Ruth

dinyull

Yeah, that's right. Just going by off feel as my wireless computer won't work off the rear wheel (lack of signal strength).

Have been considering a cheap HRM or a Garmin 500 but have just stumbled onto the Bryton Rider 20 which is only £15 more than the HRM and has all of the functions I'd want from the 500 as well as HRM and cadence.

Cheers

diy

I'm personally not a fan of 20/20 I prefer 20/10 with a 30 second rest every 8-10 "rep cycles". You really do want to be going balls out for the 20 and no HR monitor is going to help you analyze that because of the drift effect. Its just work to max.

I think training with data is a must (HR & cadence etc), but HIIT is probably not the most useful place to use it.

dinyull

Sorry, by 20/20 I meant: 10 min warm up, 20 min effort, 10 min easy spin, 20 min effort, 10 min warm down.

ai_1

Dinyull wrote:

Sorry, by 20/20 I meant: 10 min warm up, 20 min effort, 10 min easy spin, 20 min effort, 10 min warm down.

For this speed would do and HR is ideal. For HIT I'd agree that HR is not suitable as mentioned earlier. However it's also not needed for HIT

diy

Makes more sense and its very hard to go on feel. if you are relatively fit, you need a to keep an eye on the RHR first - otherwise you can't compare one session with the next if you are just going on HR.

davidof

Dinyull wrote:

having read the forum this morning it seems like a lot of folk don't think HRM is that important and I'm now a bit confused. I don't have a cadence sensor either so I'm only going off feel when on the turbo.

a HRM is a bit like using the car temperature gauge to know how much work your car is doing. In my case if I ride at FTP it takes my heart 2 to 2.5 minutes to reach FTHR.... so for short intervals HR isn't a useful indicator. In my case any interval under 2.5 minutes would be pretty much on feel for how much work I'm doing.

For intervals above FTP heart rate is less and less useful.

napoleond

But he's asking for 20 min intervals...

People are over complicating this.

davidof

NapoleonD wrote:

But he's asking for 20 min intervals...

People are over complicating this.

I'm just explaining why people are against HR. A car temperature gauge is still a good indication of whether the engine is overheating or not.

hypster

Dinyull wrote:

Sorry, by 20/20 I meant: 10 min warm up, 20 min effort, 10 min easy spin, 20 min effort, 10 min warm down.

I think that's commonly known as a 2x20. I do one most weeks on the road and I have the workout setup in my Garmin 800 and find the HRM invaluable for judging that I am around FTHR.

Incidentally, how many ways are you going to find to ask "Do I need a HRM?" ?

dinyull

Yeah, sorry about that. Wasn't sure if first one was in right forum and then wasn't sure if I even needed one!

Cheers for all the input. I've bitten the bullet on a Bryton 20 with HRM and Cadence, so have no excuses now! Had been thinking of asking for a Garmin 500 for xmas and buying a cheap HRM to tide me over till then, but the Bryton was on offer for only £15 more than the HRM and has all of the features I'd want from the Garmin.

davidof

Just to illustrate this a bit, here is a ramp test followed by 6x1 minute intervals at >FTP



if we zoom on the middle set we see HR is still climbing at the end of each set. It would probably reach the FHR for this rider (around 170bpm) if the interval was longer.



Here is a 20 minute interval on the road at around FHR: 175bpm with power around 225 watts (5 second smoothing applied)



HR smooths out the dips in power but they do correspond in dips in power. I think this was a 20 minute climb and the power dips correspond to things like junctions, hairpins, even gear changes etc. So as the posters above have said above HR is not a bad measure for this kind of interval. Now regarding higher HRs due to drift, fatigue, stress etc; maybe it is not too bad a thing to take this into account after all drift due to overheating is still a stress on the body.

In chart 2 you could even imagine that the rate of increase and decrease could be used to estimate power and indeed there is a HR strap that does exactly this with surprisingly accurate results:

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/11/cycl ... eview.html

dinyull

Cheers for that, but that is getting into something that is way above what I'm interested in and has gone straight over my head. I'm not training to race or for any specific goals, just that to keep base fitness over the winter months so I'm not starting all over again in the new year.

DeVlaeminck

First off for 2*20s a 10 minute warm up isn't really enough, if you make it progressive then you may get away with it but 10 minutes easy spinning is not a progressive warm up. I've found if my warm up isn't great the second of the 20 minute intervals is easier than the first.

Second - agree with the above you need to be using speed or power, maybe cadence, but HR is better than nothing. My HR an drift up 10bpm over a 20 minute interval after the warm up - even for the second interval it can rise more than half that. If you work on HR and keep it constant it is likely your effort is falling so say every 5 minutes you are going to up it 2-3 bpm or something . Play about a bit and see what is a reasonable starting HR after a warm up and work from there - it'll take a few sessions to get your targets sorted.

Third - I do 2*20s in the Winter, the first few I just treat them as getting used to the discipline - don't expect to have a great session straight off but keep at it and it will come. Take it easy for a few weeks it's a long time til Spring and better to build steadily than tey and hit amazing effort levels now and quit by November.

Fourth - you need a massive fan even in a cold garage in Winter - without that you are kidding yourself into thinking you are working harder than you are.

dinyull

Understand now why I was getting confused? Haha. Also been getting PM's re. websites to use to get power readings etc but my turbo is a lbs own brand hand me down and won't be covered.

My warm up is a progressive ramp up in effort, reading Nico Roche's autobiography's taught me that. Have a pretty decent setup in one of the spare rooms, only thing I'm missing is a fan.

Cheers though, had another session last night while I wait for the Bryton to arrive and was much, much improved. Managed to complete the session and really felt I had worked afterwards. Sounds like I need to start measuring effort with HR and make a mental note of gearing/cadance and work from that.

Like I said, not training for any event other than to keep fitness so don't want to take it too seriously, but also don't want to be wasting my time.