Settle a HR dispute

WattsUp

Side 1: HRM is the better tool for indicating variables such as fatigue and such, which power won't show you; your HR will tell you at what percentage of your ability (wattage) you're capable of or where you’re at on that particular day, vs playing power ping pong.

Side 2: Heart rate is not a good estimator of intensity since it can fluctuate due to external factors that have nothing to do with fatigue etc. HR may be useful as a long-term trend monitor or some other uses, but is not useful for specific day-to-day workouts.

cougie

Why not have both ?

For point 1 ok an elevated hr could indicate fatigue but without power how do you know you're not working harder ?
Point 2 if you do repeat turbo sessions over time - then if your heart rate has reduced for the same power then the training is working.

964cup

Neither is much cop on their own, although overnight resting HR is a good indicator of fatigue trend. Combining sustainable power with HR gives you a good indicator for fatigue, provided you're staying aerobic. You should find that when you're exhausted you not only have a lower sustainable power output, you also have a lower achievable max HR.

zefs

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/norm ... ng-stress/

Alex_Simmons/RST

WattsUp wrote:

Side 1: HRM is the better tool for indicating variables such as fatigue and such, which power won't show you; your HR will tell you at what percentage of your ability (wattage) you're capable of or where you’re at on that particular day, vs playing power ping pong.

This is factually incorrect. HR response will vary day to day irrespective of what power you're capable of on the day.

HR can be normal, elevated or suppressed and yet demonstrate little to no relation to the power one might routinely be able to generate on any given day.

WattsUp wrote:

Side 2: Heart rate is not a good estimator of intensity since it can fluctuate due to external factors that have nothing to do with fatigue etc. HR may be useful as a long-term trend monitor or some other uses, but is not useful for specific day-to-day workouts.

HR is correlated with intensity of effort but only to a point and as such its utility is rather limited.

Provided you understand those limitations (no good for guiding supra threshold work, response time lag does not deal so well with variability in effort, issues with pacing and cardiac drift, and so on), then use of HR as a guide to intensity of effort is fine. e.g. limited to sub threshold reasonably steady state effort.

Of course discussions such as these are typically bogged down with discussing the very limited paradigm of training BY heart rate and assuming that has a direct correlate with using power data.

In reality training WITH power has far more utility and functionality and one can do far more than simply guide intensity of sub-threshold effort, which is about the limit of the utility of HR.

3wheeler

Where did those 2 views come from that you're tying to decide between? Seems pointless to me trying to reach such a black and white conclusion over whether HR is useful (or not).

There's plenty of information out there if you want to learn more about physiology.

Team4Luke

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

WattsUp wrote:

Side 1: HRM is the better tool for indicating variables such as fatigue and such, which power won't show you; your HR will tell you at what percentage of your ability (wattage) you're capable of or where you’re at on that particular day, vs playing power ping pong.

This is factually incorrect. HR response will vary day to day irrespective of what power you're capable of on the day.

HR can be normal, elevated or suppressed and yet demonstrate little to no relation to the power one might routinely be able to generate on any given day.

WattsUp wrote:

Side 2: Heart rate is not a good estimator of intensity since it can fluctuate due to external factors that have nothing to do with fatigue etc. HR may be useful as a long-term trend monitor or some other uses, but is not useful for specific day-to-day workouts.

HR is correlated with intensity of effort but only to a point and as such its utility is rather limited.

Provided you understand those limitations (no good for guiding supra threshold work, response time lag does not deal so well with variability in effort, issues with pacing and cardiac drift, and so on), then use of HR as a guide to intensity of effort is fine. e.g. limited to sub threshold reasonably steady state effort.

Of course discussions such as these are typically bogged down with discussing the very limited paradigm of training BY heart rate and assuming that has a direct correlate with using power data.

In reality training WITH power has far more utility and functionality and one can do far more than simply guide intensity of sub-threshold effort, which is about the limit of the utility of HR.

Power also can vary day to day dependant on what state of mine and body a person is in, in other words for no random reason you can be on a good day, power may be up but this does not whatsover mean a power gain has been made, works both ways you might be on a poor day doesn't mean your training is going to plan either.

External factors myth again re affecting HR, this is just nonesense constantly spread about, any external factors, weather hot, cold, illness tiredness, caffeine another people attach can all be controlled and in any case whatever is affecting it affects the body the person not one measuring device but not another - any response by the body could be low hr or low power or harder to hold said power etc.

StillGoing

Seriously, unless I've misunderstood your post, outside elements do affect the heart rate. Altitude, temperature, illness, fatigue, medication, stress, food & drink etc can all result in an increased heart rate. Power isn't increased or decreased by any of those. If your FTP is X, it is X no matter what irrespective of whether you can hit it or not. If your threshold HR is 150bpm and you've any of the outside influences present, the HR is almost certainly not going to be accurate.

imposter2.0

Team4Luke wrote:

External factors myth again re affecting HR, this is just nonesense constantly spread about, any external factors, weather hot, cold, illness tiredness, caffeine another people attach can all be controlled and in any case whatever is affecting it affects the body the person not one measuring device but not another - any response by the body could be low hr or low power or harder to hold said power etc.

Not sure if I've misunderstood this random nonsense or not, but if you could clarify how to control the weather, I'd be fascinated to learn more...

Alex_Simmons/RST

Team4Luke wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

WattsUp wrote:

Side 1: HRM is the better tool for indicating variables such as fatigue and such, which power won't show you; your HR will tell you at what percentage of your ability (wattage) you're capable of or where you’re at on that particular day, vs playing power ping pong.

This is factually incorrect. HR response will vary day to day irrespective of what power you're capable of on the day.

HR can be normal, elevated or suppressed and yet demonstrate little to no relation to the power one might routinely be able to generate on any given day.

WattsUp wrote:

Side 2: Heart rate is not a good estimator of intensity since it can fluctuate due to external factors that have nothing to do with fatigue etc. HR may be useful as a long-term trend monitor or some other uses, but is not useful for specific day-to-day workouts.

HR is correlated with intensity of effort but only to a point and as such its utility is rather limited.

Provided you understand those limitations (no good for guiding supra threshold work, response time lag does not deal so well with variability in effort, issues with pacing and cardiac drift, and so on), then use of HR as a guide to intensity of effort is fine. e.g. limited to sub threshold reasonably steady state effort.

Of course discussions such as these are typically bogged down with discussing the very limited paradigm of training BY heart rate and assuming that has a direct correlate with using power data.

In reality training WITH power has far more utility and functionality and one can do far more than simply guide intensity of sub-threshold effort, which is about the limit of the utility of HR.

Power also can vary day to day dependant on what state of mine and body a person is in, in other words for no random reason you can be on a good day, power may be up but this does not whatsover mean a power gain has been made, works both ways you might be on a poor day doesn't mean your training is going to plan either.

External factors myth again re affecting HR, this is just nonesense constantly spread about, any external factors, weather hot, cold, illness tiredness, caffeine another people attach can all be controlled and in any case whatever is affecting it affects the body the person not one measuring device but not another - any response by the body could be low hr or low power or harder to hold said power etc.

Our ability to express power does have natural day to day variability, but it is pretty small. A percent or so perhaps. Even a well executed taper (if one is warranted) only lifts power output capacity by ~2%.

Which is why when assessing whether a meaningful changes in fitness have occurred you need to see a gain greater than this level, or have sufficient repeatable/reliable data to enable greater resolution.

HR can and does fluctuate independently of this and is most definitely is impacted by many factors. To suggest it's not is to fly in the face of the published scientific literature on it, so perhaps you might like to read some?

Day to day variability in lab controlled conditions where factors such as temperature, humidity, diet, fatigue, sleep, hydration are all controlled of 4 bpm for same individual is not unusual, some studies show ~4% variability in sub-maximal HR response in lab controlled conditions. There is research on this going back to the middle of last century, it's hardly news, e.g. Taylor C Am J Physiol 1944; 142: 200-12.

Layer onto that cardiovascular drift for moderate exercise level (of the order of 10% to 15% over about an hour, viz Ekelund Acta Physiol Scand 1967; 70 Suppl. 68:5-38 and Mognoni et al Eur J Appl Physiol 1990; 60: 239-43), and the much greater variability in HR response that has been reported in the scientific literature when examining various external influences that occur in the field (dozens of papers), well hopefully you get the point.

None of this says HR isn't useful.

It's just that it has limitations and understanding those limitations is important when you seek to use HR in the very narrow training paradigm of guiding intensity of effort.

But if you have power measurement, it's at best redundant, at worst misleading.