Finding my training zones, advice needed

Square

Hi there,
I am a complete cycling noob who just baught his first roadbike on monday. Before that I was riding a friends trekking bike for a few weeks and got into the sport this way. Before that I only trained for strength in the gym, but I am a natrually skinny guy currently 60 kg, body height 175 cm. At the beginning of the year my body weight was 73 kg though, but I stopped eating more than I want to. Back in April 2016 I was at 50 kg. I am pretty much untrained when it comes to endurance sports in general. I am (almost) 22 years old. So much about my training history.

I love the sport and want to take my training seriously to try to get in the best form I can. So to be able to do that I am trying to figure out my heart rate zones, I did not buy a power meter yet and probably won't this year. My heart rate data seems to be very unordinary. I did a maximum heart rate test back in April (while running though), the result was 207 but I felt like I did not push hard enough. So I could calculate my zones based on that value. But the strange thing is: The "natural" zone I allways pick and really enjoy training in according to this seems to be zone 4, the threshold zone.

Here are some stats:
My ride yesterday, second ride with my new road bike and the first using the Garmin Edge 1000:
Distance: 60.24 km
Time: 2:07 h
Average HR: 170
Average Cadence: 101 rpm
HR Zones:
Z5 9%
Z4 85%
Z3: 4% (Only because I had to stop at traffic lights from time to time)
Z2 and Z1 0%

Before that I used runtastic cycling app and a Sigma heart rate monitor:
On sunday I did a 78 km ride in 3:07 h (on the trekking bike but on streets) with an average heart rate of 170 bpm, maximum 191.

The most extreme record is from Wednesday last week in moderatly hot conditions (aroud 28°C with the sun shining quite strongly), trekking bike on gravel:
Distance: 22.63 km
Time: 52:45 min
Average HR: 187 (!!!) bpm
Maximum HR: 196 bpm
Since that was allmost a full hour my threshold heart rate seems to be at least 187 (I did not go "all out"), which yields totally different heart rate zones then the one calculated by the max HR value.

But either way, I can not imagine training with a HR below 150, that just does not feel like doing sports at all. My resting heart rate is around 55 and when sitting it is usually around 65. And yes my heart is absolutely healthy, has been checked multiple times since 2014. When riding with that intensity I start to feel very very well after around 40 mins and even better after 60, allmost like being high on drugs. All problems seem to be gone and everything feels perfect, I absolutely love that feeling. Even the butt pain from sitting on the hard sattle, which I am not used to yet, completly goes away.

So what heart rate zones should I use? Using the Threshold method from British Cycling yields totally different results than using my max HR. Using threshold heart rate even puts the end of zone 5 way higher than my maximum heart rate. I really don't get what's wrong here. My cardiovascular system seems to be quite fit without training, I don't think most untrained people are able to train with 80% mximum HR for over 3 hours. I never ever felt like I was "out of breath" except for after the max HR test, but even then I did not feel the need to stop, just to slow down. On the other hand my muscles seem to be really week. I naturally pick a cadence of around 100 rpm and everything below 95 feels almost uncomfortably "hard". Whith low cadence I instantly start to feel my legs getting fatigued.

imposter2.0

Square wrote:

Hi there,
I am a complete cycling noob who just baught his first roadbike on monday.

I stopped reading after this. Just ride your bike, enjoy the summer, get some miles in your legs and then ask the same question again in another 3-4 months or so.

fenix

Yeah don't get too serious too soon. Enjoy the summer - you don't have any training zones at the moment as you're so new.

Work on mileage and building up.

Is that cadence right ? It seems very spinny. Most newbies are about 60rpm which is way too low and the sweetspot is somewhere north of 80.

fenix

You need to build up stamina before you start out doing intense rides - otherwise you burn out. It's very common.

YOur post exercise euphoria is the endorphin rush - again very common.

Max HR for bikes will be different for running. Running Max HR will be higher as you're using more muscles.

DaveyO

What Fenix said ^^^
I only bought my bike a year ago. I set up my zones quite early on to stop doing exactly what you seem to be doing at the moment, thrashing around everywhere.
Base endurance work seems mundane and boring but i'm glad i did plenty of it up until the end of winter as it has paid dividends now.

pblakeney

Try riding in Zone 2 and enjoy cycling rather than suffering training.

joe2008

Yep, just enjoy cycling, and riding at a low intensity will do you far more good than you seem to think, it will help to improve your endurance and give you a solid base on which to build.

I would suggest that you're riding far too hard to see long term gains: I think you'll plateau, try to go even harder, get fatigued and burn out due to not having a solid base of endurance riding.

joenobody

If really want to find out your HR zones, then you can start by determining your lactate threshold. Once you have that you can find your HR zones. I have to echo what others are saying about just riding though. I only ride to HR when I'm on the turbo (focused training due to an impending half ironman). When I'm out for a ride, although I track my HR, I never pay attention to it.

Square

Thanks a lot for the advice, I really appreciate it. And yes I believe you are absolutely right when you say it does not make a lot of sense to continue to train the way I do and won't be sustainable for long, that is why I asked about the issue. The thing is: When I only go out for a ride without specifying a target heart rate zone beforehand, which is what I've been doing so far, I push myself quite hard because I really enjoy that once my "high" kicks in.

So I really want to use the heart rate monitor to hold me back, like DaveyO suggested. And for that I need to set up my zones. But as you said, and from what I've read now from other sources, maximum heart rate really is problematic here, most likely because what I think my maximum is, probably isn't. I'll do a functional threshold test on saturday, but for now when I plug in my lower boundary of 187 for the threshold heart rate, I get 175 for the transition heart rate between Z3 and Z4 which seems to make a lot of sense because it means most of my training so far was in Z3. Which from what I have read is a typical over motivated beginner mistake that I'll try to work on by forcing myself to go slower.

But if I do so, should I increase the distance for those rides? I feel confident I could easily go 100 km and longer with a heart rate of 150 and below, but that will also be very slow of course. Or are you saying that doing my typical 60-80 km rides at a slower pace will actually be more benificial than going faster? Because that would just be counter-intuitive. I mean: Does it not take and build more "endurance" to ride for 3 hours with high intensity than it does to go for the same time at a lower intensity? Or is recovery the problem here?

And yes I believe the cadence sensor is accurate. I seem to prefer higher cadence, it just feels better to me.

sheffsimon

Square wrote:

Thanks a lot for the advice, I really appreciate it. And yes I believe you are absolutely right when you say it does not make a lot of sense to continue to train the way I do and won't be sustainable for long, that is why I asked about the issue. The thing is: When I only go out for a ride without specifying a target heart rate zone beforehand, which is what I've been doing so far, I push myself quite hard because I really enjoy that once my "high" kicks in.

So I really want to use the heart rate monitor to hold me back, like DaveyO suggested. And for that I need to set up my zones. But as you said, and from what I've read now from other sources, maximum heart rate really is problematic here, most likely because what I think my maximum is, probably isn't. I'll do a functional threshold test on saturday, but for now when I plug in my lower boundary of 187 for the threshold heart rate, I get 175 for the transition heart rate between Z3 and Z4 which seems to make a lot of sense because it means most of my training so far was in Z3. Which from what I have read is a typical over motivated beginner mistake that I'll try to work on by forcing myself to go slower.

But if I do so, should I increase the distance for those rides? I feel confident I could easily go 100 km and longer with a heart rate of 150 and below, but that will also be very slow of course. Or are you saying that doing my typical 60-80 km rides at a slower pace will actually be more benificial than going faster? Because that would just be counter-intuitive. I mean: Does it not take and build more "endurance" to ride for 3 hours with high intensity than it does to go for the same time at a lower intensity? Or is recovery the problem here?

And yes I believe the cadence sensor is accurate. I seem to prefer higher cadence, it just feels better to me.

You aren't pushing yourself hard, you aren't overtraining, you've only had your bike a week.

Ride as far and as fast as you want.

Throw the HRM in the back of the cupboard.

Cancel the the functional threshold test.

Re-read Imposter's advice at the start of this thread.