Bonking = lean body mass loss?

njee20

Those power numbers are very very low. I'd be ignoring them frankly and training to a repeatable and reliable metric.

The Rookie

No wonder the HR is low producing that low power, I'm with NJEE on a lot of what he has told you to try and help. I don't monitor all this stuff but using the (I know its far from perfect) Strava power I averaged over 180W over 12 hours on a 135 mile ride the other day, it would have been higher but my ride partner wasn't able to go much faster, I averaged over 20kph for the first 60km on a Hybrid with suspension forks. (48, 5'9" and just over 80Kg, 'ideal' weight probably around 73-75Kg).

I'm not a lot overweight (am a bit) and I can all too easily eat far too much food, they best thing I've found is to have the right food more handy than the wrong food, that way if you 'must' eat its the better stuff.

Eating something like a packet of crisps is a sure fire way to almost guarantee you'll have another packet (or similar crud) in 25-40 minutes.

RutlandGav

i've not been to the gym for a couple of weeks so no chance to try get some better numbers.

i've changed my mind about stuff i wrote earlier in the thread but i guess i'm forever saddled with it.

I'm finding that if i eat sufficient low fat carbohydrates and top up with something healthy when needed i am able to stay off the vending machine crap whilst still loosing weight decently fast. Years of yo-yo dieting, trying to follow excessively strict diets can leave you convinced that you've got no control over this stuff.

As to the original subject, i'd rather not become roadkill so i bring a sugary drink to replenish with when i go cycling. I wait till i'm experiencing the effects of low blood sugar before consuming it however, and make note of how long it was before this happened - these sports drinks bring me round in a matter of minutes. It's kind of like running a car with no fuel gauge - i can only estimate my mpg, and how much fuel was in the tank, by how far i can drive before the low fuel light comes on.

Re: the low HR

Guys, i am 42. Using the formula 220-Age, 125 HR is actually 70% of my MHR. You're saying i should be spending my 15 hours a week on the bike at 150 or more?

Re: the low power

It takes years to make a good cyclist, so cut me some slack please.

I don't have reliable numbers, that is an issue. I used to own a HRM, but lost the thing and didn't replace as the gym equipment had its own. I'm estimating distances with google maps because i don't have a bike computer. Struggling to find places to put stuff up front, with the damn tri-bars and lights in the way.

Without power meters , exercise is very subjective. 180 watts when you're listening to a DJ play music you like but haven't heard before is super easy. With no entertainment on the exercise bike, 130 can feel much harder. How does an actual bike, with rolling countryside , sunrises, sunsets, twisty bends compare? I dunno but my head starts going fuzzy quicker than it tends to at the gym, so i'm possibly more motivated and pushing more.

njee20

Re: the low HR

Guys, i am 42. Using the formula 220-Age, 125 HR is actually 70% of my MHR. You're saying i should be spending my 15 hours a week on the bike at 150 or more?

That's a woefully inaccurate way to measure MHR. Do a test.

Without power meters , exercise is very subjective. 180 watts when you're listening to a DJ play music you like but haven't heard before is super easy. With no entertainment on the exercise bike, 130 can feel much harder. How does an actual bike, with rolling countryside , sunrises, sunsets, twisty bends compare? I dunno but my head starts going fuzzy quicker than it tends to at the gym, so i'm possibly more motivated and pushing more

I still maintain that's not right, I think that's more likely inaccuracies between the systems. You need to think as well... why is 180w better than 130w? Would 300w be better? It's just numbers. It's what you do with those numbers that is significant. If you do an hour at 100 watts, but do a 20 minute effort at 200 watts, you'll average 125w, but is that a better session than sitting at 130w the whole time? What's your target? Are you trying to increase your threshold power? Do you want to be a track sprinter? Do you want to win the national marathon championships?

RutlandGav

njee20 wrote:

You need to think as well... why is 180w better than 130w? Would 300w be better? It's just numbers. It's what you do with those numbers that is significant. If you do an hour at 100 watts, but do a 20 minute effort at 200 watts, you'll average 125w, but is that a better session than sitting at 130w the whole time? What's your target? Are you trying to increase your threshold power? Do you want to be a track sprinter? Do you want to win the national marathon championships?

Well that's easy. I want to stop being a fat b*****d. I want to burn as many calories in the session as possible before running out of energy or being forced to eat something in order to continue. That is why i'd take 2 hours @ 130W over 20 minutes at 200W.

I'm down to 91KG atm compared to 99KG measured some time back in March, but there's still a long ways to go.

Subjectively, i find that if i drop below 115HR the "buzz" that comes from doing exercise drops off and i feel bored and that i'd prefer to stop altogether and have a snooze. So that's why i tend to churn a lot of gym hours at just above this level.

On the road, I probably speed up a bit. I don't like being seen crawling along like a granny. I don't like getting overtaken like i'm standing still. Corners are more fun when you're going faster. I want to get where i'm going. I feel a lot safer if i'm keeping up with the flow of traffic.

Think i might grab a cheap HRM and stick it to my top tube or riser, find out how i'm really behaving.

njee20

Well that's easy. I want to stop being a fat b*****d. I want to burn as many calories in the session as possible before running out of energy or being forced to eat something in order to continue. That is why i'd take 2 hours @ 130W over 20 minutes at 200W.

A HRM will be better for that than a power meter, and you need to know your MHR reasonably accurately to be able to work out the appropriate intensity. Otherwise you're just guessing.

RutlandGav

njee20 wrote:

Well that's easy. I want to stop being a fat b*****d. I want to burn as many calories in the session as possible before running out of energy or being forced to eat something in order to continue. That is why i'd take 2 hours @ 130W over 20 minutes at 200W.

A HRM will be better for that than a power meter, and you need to know your MHR reasonably accurately to be able to work out the appropriate intensity. Otherwise you're just guessing.

Well obviously I wouldn't spend all that money on a power meter without also obtaining a much cheaper HRM.

As I wrote in another thread -

Before i was cycling i was burning the weight off at the cardio suite, and in the "so-called" fat burning HR zone i noticed huge variability in my HR at the same power output - plus or minus ten in either direction at least.

Factors affecting HR at same power output in the 130-150W zone -

heat - sweating = more blood flow to skin, more HR
food - digestion = more blood flow to stomach, more HR
time of day and pyschological arousal

The latter is a big one. Mid afternoon, bored and sleepy, my HR is very low for the power output i'm holding, but i find the exercise hard going, it actually feels like my muscles hurt more and are being starved of oxygen. In the evening energy spike, i feel much more pumped up and my HR is way higher, but subjectively the exercise feels easier - using the same settings on the same piece of exercise equipment.

There is probably more consistency at higher HR when physiological needs of the muscles will override most other things, but down at zone 2 varies far too much at the same power output due to these other factors to be useful for planning food intake.

njee20

Well obviously I wouldn't spend all that money on a power meter without also obtaining a much cheaper HRM.

Why not just get the HRM? I don't think a power meter will be the silver bullet you seem to think. As someone who's used one for years.

diy

I'd be keen to look at your resting HR too. There are apps for your phone that can do that with the camera and flash. You can get a much better idea of MaxHR by doing some basic tests on an exercise bike, rowing machine etc.. Might as well use an exercise bike - as long as it has HR and enough resistance for you to go balls out for 5, 20, 40 or 60 minutes depending on the test.

Depending on your resting HR, I'm not surprised you get bored at 115bpm, you are pretty much in zone 1 by then.

simple calculator here.
http://www.digifit.com/heartratezones/t ... -zones.asp?

RutlandGav

I'd wanted to let this thread die off, but there's some new info.

I'm still grinding away, now down to 88/89kg, over 10kg off from where i started. And a couple weeks ago, I bought a cheap Polar HRM to find out what i'm actually doing out on the road.

The first week of commuting with the HRM, my average was just 115-122. However, it turns out that I pick the pace up significantly for the last couple of miles of every journey, reaching 130-140. This is entirely subconscious, I thought I just flatlined the entire way. I do these rides fasted now, obviously at such low intensity I don't need to eat even if fighting a headwind for 2 hours.

A did a few non-commuting rides, about 90 minutes or so, averaged over 130.

There was one occasion on the way to work where i got into a race with a colleague on a road bike over the last mile. Hit 167HR that morning - very little recollection of what it felt like, the only thing going through my mind was "Faster!".

And last Saturday something strange happened. I had not ridden for 3 days, and wanted to do a pre-breakfast dawn training ride. Ended up faffing around on the computer and procrastinating till noon before i finally set off, though still hadn't had breakfast. I didn't feel energetic beforehand, but as i started getting out onto unexplored roads, in the pleasant spring weather, with some podcasts on my mp3 player, in an area of some natural beauty, i felt more and more fired up. For the first three hours hr was always above 130, reaching 150 in climbs. I stopped every 90 minutes or so, to buy another sports drink, but that is all i ended up eating that day.

And i got thoroughly lost. I'd been "navigating" by the position of the sun, forgetting that it moves, ending up doing a huge circle which google maps said was 80 miles, arriving home just after sunset. Hr did roll back, averaging only 123bpm for the last four.

So, how was all this possible given what i've previously said on this subject? How did i ride so far on relatively little food?

My previous "model" for what was going on, was that when cycling, my body would obtain the energy by burning a mixture of carbohydrate and fat. After a while, my carbohydrate reserves would deplete giving rise to low blood sugar symptoms, and I'd need to start eating to keep going. Given how quickly this was setting in, I surmised that I must have been burning at least 80% carbohydrate in the exercise.

So, if the exercise was burning over 80% carbohydrates, my stored carbohydrate reserves were empty, and I was only able to keep going by taking on more carbohydrates orally, then that suggested exercise after the point where i was forced to start eating was pointless - i was simply converting the food intake to more miles, without burning off any more stored energy.

Instead it appears that whilst I need to top up with a sports drink every 90 minutes or so to keep blood sugar stable, I am not merely limited to only pedalling as far as a 500ml bottle of lucosade sport gets me. I was actually burning three times as much energy as was contained within the bottle between top-ups, so either my muscles are switching to predominantly fat-burn mode after depleting glycogen, or they've been burning a nearer 50-50 mix from the start and the low blood sugar attacks i've been feeling during exercise are just that - glycogen is still available elsewhere in the body, but for some reason isn't reaching my brain.

There was a price to pay for that ride of course, this week at work I've only been able to hold 107-109 average, just not had the energy to push harder. Then I came down with a head cold, still got a sore throat so it'll probably be another week before i can repeat the feat.

RutlandGav

Despite the urging I've not, btw, yet felt sufficiently motivated to try a max hr or max power test at the gym. In fact i'm considering cancelling the sub, since i only went a couple of times last month and find it hard to feel as motivated as i do out on the open road.

I did a repeat of the "hr/vs power" test i made for myself earlier, seeing what my hr stabilizes at after a few minutes at different settings on the exercise bike -

130 Watts - HR 122
150 Watts - HR 127
170 Watts - HR 132
190 Watts - HR 138
210 Watts - HR 148 *

The 210 Watt result is in doubt, I had trouble holding target RPM. Had to really concentrate, I quickly hit 148, then over next minute fell back to 144, but then I saw I'd let my rpm drop as well. Tried harder and managed to hold RPM for another couple of minutes, HR didn't exceed previous peak, but then i slipped back again

This is up significantly from what i previously reported, but again, take with a pinch of salt because they just replaced all their exercise equipment.

If I can get a bonus or overtime payment at work this summer, I'll spend it on a stages power meter. And ditch that expensive gym membership.

Chunkers1980

Fascinating

NeXXus

This is like the Soni thread, just less "car crash"

njee20

There are (or at least will be) cheaper and infinitely more reliable options than Stages appearing in the next few months. I'd not buy one.

diy

How long were the above tests?

See what power you can hold for 20 mins after a 5 minute warm up. i.e. work your nuts off for 20 mins.

njee20

We've been round the houses on that. Doesn't want to do any sort of FTP test to get a meaningful baseline.