Heart rate

Your training guide (presumably comes with your Polar) is just that, a generic training guide that needs to be suitable for a wide range of people. On top of that each coach, or sports scientist may have a different training paradigm. For e.g., with the HR scheme that i use up to 70% HRmax is a recovery session.

It looks like your Polar estimates HRmax by something like 220-age (which should give 184 b/min). However, this, and most other equations used to estimate HRmax have standard deviation (or is it SEM) of ~+/- 15 b/min, which means that the estimate can be a long way out.

Not that i bother with HR anymore (other than an odd test to see what my max is for a 'laugh') but at 38 years i can still reach 197 - 200 b/min depending on my training status (HRmax decreases as you get fitter). It's also exercise modality dependent (as is VO2max).

In short if you want to know what your HRmax is you'll need to test yourself and find out (although it would be contraindicated in some circumstances). You should then, perhaps, ascertain what your goals are and find some good HR zones (but be aware that on any given day HR can vary at a specific intensity due to various factors)

ric

nope goes down by up to about 10 b/min

ric

while i can't speak directly for Andy, i can say that
1) Andy wouldn't advise such a test (20-mins for power or HR)
2) Andy doesn't use HR (as a guide), or really at all (IIRC one of our chats)

Additionally, ascertaining ~98% of 20-min avg HR to be equal to ~1-hr TT HRavg is somewhat incorrect. Firstly, it would be different for everyone, and secondly, for myself, my avg HR from a 25-mile TT is often *higher* than during a 10-mile TT, due to 1) the time taken for HR to rise in response to the exercise intensity, and 2) CV drift

Ric

with the people i coach who don't have power meters, i use HRmax to determine HR training zones. However, i don't feel it really matters what system you use (e.g., HRmax or HRavg)... what's more important is

1) you understand that training sessions in one system may not be transferable to another (e.g., zone 1 in system X; could be zone 3 in system Y). Follow one set of training ideas
2) you need to test yourself in some way rather than estimating or guessing the starting point
3) testing yourself may be contraindicated for some individuals
4) not all systems are good; or some systems (training zones) could be too generic (e.g. possibly the problem with the OP)
5) there's probably a number 5, but it's too late for me to think of it ;-)
6) the way i test, either for MAP or HRmax to ascertain my training zones is here http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=powerstern
7) what's wrong with HRmax?
8) did i mention i like HRmax for non-power meter users?

Ric

it's where me an Andy differ. I use MAP, which Andy also agrees is fine (see his 8 deadly sins)

ric

Shadescp wrote:

Thanks for the links and papers. They look very useful.

For me, my bpm are:

140-150 (76-80% max) - Easy cycling/recovery
150-160 (80-86% max ) - Moderate cycling
165-170 (89-92% max) - Starting to work and labour but can maintain it.
170 is my heart rate when im making a long, steep climb during XC mountain biking. If I push just a little over that I go anaerobic. Or is my av.HR during a 10 -mile TT.
170-175 (92-95% max ) - Threshold.
184 - Max

Obviously I know the bpm are correct, as I know how I feel for each rate, but those percentages seem very high. I guess it doesn't matter as i can just go on bpm, but do you agree that the percentages seem weird?

These figures seem ok. A couple of comments I'd make is that the lower end figures are too high. Recovery rides should be done at much less than 140bpm. This sort of ride you may do the day after the 10 mile TT or very hard workouts, or later on the same day as the hard workout.

The other observation is that you don't seem to be doing rides longer than 2 hours. There's nothing wrong with that, but if you were to, say, go on a four hour ride then you'll probably find you'd have to ease back a bit on the intensity.

You don't have any figures for shorter high intensity intervals of 3 to 6 minutes at 94 to 96% of max.

So most of your riding seems to be clustered around the tempo and threshold levels. Which seems to make sense because you are neither doing long endurance rides nor short high-intesity intervals.

If you want to improve your 10 TT times you may want to do some 5 minute intervals at above 93%. Say 5 x 5 minutes with five minute recovery in between.

But you need to pick a system to use and stick with it and test. Either use Ric's system which you can find in the link he gave with an explanation of the zones or maybe Andy Coggan's system from the link I gave you (or another system -- but I'd avoid the bit of paper with the HR monitor). Take your pick.

HTH

Bin