heart rate zones

tehtehteh

I read this article a while back and now that I have a garmin and heart rate monitor I decided to give it a try

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/article/h ... sts-28838/

it mentions going slower to get faster, long rides in zone 1 and 2 as a good way to build endurance, great, turns out I can't get anywhere near zone 1, a little bit in zone 2 and 4, and most of it in zone 3, and as soon as I hit any hills is into zone 5

recovery rides "in zone 1 or even lower" seems impossible to me

it mentions doing 30 second flat-out sprints expect to see your HR rise to 85-90% of max, I haven't tried yet but I'm pretty sure 30 seconds flat out would see me at 99-100% of max heart rate

I suppose this article could just be optimistic or written for the level of a proper club cyclist, or I'm nowhere near as fit as I thought I was, or I don't know how to cycle slow enough, or the roads aren't flat enough around here for me to cycle at such a level, I just wondered now what other peoples experiences of riding to heart rate zones are?

bobmcstuff

There are numerous threads on this (and an equal number of opinions ) but I think you should look at how much time you have for training and then decide whether the traditional winter base training approach is the best approach for you. A search for "time crunched"/high intensity intervals or polarised training will bring up plenty of threads on here or on Google.

I ride to heart rate zones quite a lot but usually if I am looking at a target it is either zone 2 or zone 4 (5 zone model), and I don't have much issue with it. Keeping into zone 1 is very difficult, not that I try to do it really. My structured training is high intensity intervals (mostly turbo based), so they will be fairly equally split between z2 and z4. My normal rides tend to be in z3 if I am solo or on a proper club run (not that I pay much attention during the ride), or z2 in an easy group ride.

buckmulligan

The first thing to say is that heart rate values are a very personal thing and to get a good feel for it you have to pay attention to your values over a number of months and even years to get a good understanding of what is going on.

How did you determine your zones, based on the method described in that article? I'm not a fan of basing zones on max heart rate for two reasons (1) it's often difficult to determine accurately and can change significantly with changing fitness levels and (2) the time spent training at this intensity is tiny, so why not base it off something more relevant?

I much prefer Joe Friel's method based on Lactate Threshold Heart Rate whereby you perform a standardised test at a high intensity and base your zones on that; I'd strongly urge that you give his stuff a read. It addresses the two issues above in that (1) it gives you an accurate and repeatable test to base your zones off and (2) the intensity at which your testing is a common training intensity level so is less prone to errors in extrapolation (i.e. from MHR).

Having said all of that (and I don't want to sound rude!) but what you're describing sounds like a classic case of lack of cycling fitness. Most people will notice it around this time of year after a month or two off the bike; your HR is constantly elevated, trying to ride in the lower zones feels painfully slow and when you do nail it up a hill you can hit very high HR values that are impossible to hit later in the year when your cardiovascular fitness is back in shape. For now, I'd recommend that you don't worry about it too much, just get out on the bike and ride. Keep an eye on your values and if you use Garmin Connect, have a look at the "Time In Zones" panel over a number of rides and see if you start to see a shift towards the lower zones as your fitness improves.

bobmcstuff

BuckMulligan wrote:

How did you determine your zones, based on the method described in that article? I'm not a fan of basing zones on max heart rate for two reasons (1) it's often difficult to determine accurately and can change significantly with changing fitness levels and (2) the time spent training at this intensity is tiny, so why not base it off something more relevant?

I much prefer Joe Friel's method based on Lactate Threshold Heart Rate whereby you perform a standardised test at a high intensity and base your zones on that; I'd strongly urge that you give his stuff a read. It addresses the two issues above in that (1) it gives you an accurate and repeatable test to base your zones off and (2) the intensity at which your testing is a common training intensity level so is less prone to errors in extrapolation (i.e. from MHR).

This is similar in principle to the TCTP method, which is 2x 8 min efforts and take the highest 8min average - and I agree it is more useful than picking a number (especially if you've done it by 200-age!).

Funnily enough my zones based off MHR and off the test match up very well, but I assume that is probably coincidence (either that or I had a really accurate MHR and I was at the same fitness when I did the test - but I suspect not).

Anyway as Buck says after a while you get a feeling for the zones - I find the point at which I go from Z3 to Z4 in particular is quite distinctive, and I can tell without looking at the HR which I am in.