I don’t follow Seiler, however if he is saying 60-70% HRmax that is 105-122bpm for me. Which is a super easy recovery ride for me. My “all-day HR” and DFA a1 are much much higher, in the 130s and 140s. Not even close. If it was 60-70% HR-Reserve (HRR), that would be 129-141bpm, and the upper end of 70% HRR maps over to my all-day HR and endurance ride target.
Instead of the talk test I’m fortunate to have “all-day HR” from the early days of getting a road bike just over 6 years ago. Hilly or rolling centuries spent chasing off the back, those are all .75-.85 tempo IF (higher power variability) and mostly in the 138-142bpm range. Scale those down to a 2-4 hour solo low variability endurance ride and the IF is in .72-.79 range at 138-142bpm. The easier 100+ mile rides include a double century at .67 IF / 130bpm, and a recent century (month ago) at .66 IF / 131bpm. Those were smelling the roses easy.
Mapping that 138-142bpm back into HR percentages it comes out to 79-81% HRmax or 86-88% LTHR.
In my experience, targeting 8-12 hours/week, using “all-day HR” is better than DFA a1 or the 60-70% HRmax. Of course not everyone has that data.
On those 138-142bpm rides it definitely feels like I’m working, they require some focus/fueling/hydration, and while breathing is relatively easy it is not a recovery coffee ride where I would want to, or could carry on a conversation. Yes I could have a short conversation, spitting out a sentence or two at a time, anymore and that would impact focus and cause increase in breathing. Don’t recall listening to a podcast where ISM gives his version of the talk test. Do you remember one? Hopefully with a transcript like Scientific Triathlon.
I listened to him on several Fasttalk podcasts and I think he says something different every time.
But, yeah, that is the ballpark based on my recollection.
A few years ago, I did my first Seiler style base block. 60% was excruciatingly slow. 70% was 128bpm so I just split the difference and went with 125bpm.
Yep, yes, and me too. Wasn’t trying to nit pick or be pedantic there. Like you, I can’t remember what he said and have found good match those other ways.
This was my “late 2018” frustration with those early Seiler interviews. I remember thinking: “surely it isn’t this slow.” And it isn’t.
I don’t recall as I’ve heard him many times on several different podcasts. From your description, I think you are riding a little bit harder than the ISM talk test.
I did the pledge of allegiance test. Can you say it without pausing for air?
No. When I read some of your posts, I think you are riding too easy At least if you were me. I tried the bottom of Friel’s HR-zone2 / upper middle HR-zone2 of Coggan’s “I don’t want to give these but here they are anyway.” Those were too low. For me. On 8-12 hours/week. After 9 months I hired a coach and he pushed up the targets on my zone2 rides, up to what I’m calling all-day HR based on two/three dozen 5-14 hour rides. And then performance increased, like when I self-coached in 2016-2017 and only had the Time Crunched Cyclist and Friel Bible books (and didn’t listen to podcasts, or professors that are not coaches).
A few years ago my 125bpm was really, really slow. 120bpm was getting on the bike and pedaling a few times. 5bpm didn’t make much difference.
I persevered with this Seiler base block at 125bpm. I started off at 6 hours per week and was going 12mph at the start. I ended the block 11 weeks later at 13 hours per week and my 125bpm was now 17-18mph. It was a huge change for me.
Interestingly, I was breaking all my strava PRs at week 7/8 and didn’t really improve more despite increasing hours more and more.
See the story above. I made enormous gains in 7 weeks of riding slow. My mistake that year was not shifting gears into a tempo/ss/ftp block. Or, maybe doing a VO2 block.
This year, I’m doing 2+ hours per week of the Steve Neal style tempo intervals and I’ve hit all time wattages now in March and I feel like I’m just getting started.
Opposite here, 9 months of endurance rides at the bottom of Friel HR-zone2 or low-mid Coggan HR-zone2 was at best causing me to tread water. Only did “zone2 only” for 8 weeks, and after that added sweet spot and later some higher intensity work and fast group rides. Should have known better, when I was self-coached the Friel HR zones worked well. But always willing to try something and see if it works.
Since switching to what for you might in fact be too high, my RHR has dropped 10+bpm and HRV has improved significantly. In 2019 it was around 72bpm, its always been high, and now its routinely 58-60bpm. Pretty much all year long I’m doing intervals and intensity, there is no dedicated endurance block except if I’m lifting heavy, or the first 3-4 weeks coming back from being off the bike for a month. And always power targets, except for unusual situations like coming back after extended time off (and then HR for only a 3-4 week block). For targets its mostly driven off recovery, with some cross referencing to HR & previous power-to-HR data. On the bike its power ranges without worrying about HR going over some boundary.
My easy aerobic rides are like 110 bpm, but im shooting to stay below lt1 and use a hr cap of 120. Was doing more work at lt1 until about 2020, and then started trying to split up my endurance training to @lt1, < lt1, and well below lt1.
Curious about your reasoning/motivation to split endurance into @lt1, less than lt1, and way below lt1? Do you run? Looks like you are averaging a little under 6 hours/week - about 60 hours in your HR zones, about 36 hours with (cycling) power, and about 10 weeks since Jan 1. Are you running 24 hours since Jan? Running is a lot harder on the body, and I believe has more compelling reasoning for doing more of it way below lt1.
Not yet.Until I’m reasonably proficient in drawing blood i’m just doing one offs when I get on the turbo. ie Gentle warm up then after 30 mins +20 Watts for 10m etc. My last one was 140W*129bpm @ 1.5mmol. I’ll take that as my limit until the next time I do one. I’m recovering from a couple of colds (2 years of not seeing anyone then visiting 2 sets of grandkids). I’m assuming that I wasn’t properly recovered when I did the other one. I also did it too soon after a carb heavy breakfast. When I can do the test quickly and efficiently I’ll do a proper test.
he is not saying it is exactly crap, but that it may have application if used in a more certain way, just like 4 mmol lactate is not the golden point to LT1… it is always more complicated when you talk about human physiology it seems. I know it does not likely work for me but still has some information it may just be that 0.75 is not the break point. The 0.5 point is interesting in that it is a point where the data become completely random, that is an interesting thing that may be informative as well? Time and more research will tell.
Just to add that the referenced study had 1min ramp test which makes it obsolete in my eyes. That is not to say that 0.75 is correct, but that the protocol of the study does not provide any valuable information. That being said, it would definitely not be surprising to see individual variation for DFA alfa1 values at LT1 for different individuals.
I alternate run/bike on a 14 day mesocycle so there’s approximately the same number of runs as bikes.
I actually started forcing myself to run slower the last few years after having success biking easier for specific workouts. Staying far below lt1 when running for still involves some walking at times, but i decided to give that a try after seeing elites with sub 30 min 10k running 8 min miles… i can do some easy work at 930 or so. With running, it is incredibly easy to go harder than lt1, so to do that with my running has taken a lot of discipline.
Why i split it up has been my discovery with my own response to training when seeking that minimum effective dose. Also, staying under lt1 is generally going to keep me fresh for my key days, but playing around with the intensity on my easy days gets me fresher for my harder days.
So now I’ve settled on: mon and tues, stay well below lt1, wed and thurs intervals, friday below lt1, saturday intervals on a longer day, sunday stay below lt1 but longer so the week looks like: recovery, recovery, hard, hard, easy, hard + longer, easy + longer.
As always, using a mean value without discussing the standard deviation is where using an absolute value for the thresholds can get you in to trouble.
If we assume a normal distribution around the mean, it means it takes +/- 3 standard deviations to represent 99.7% of the population. So reporting the standard dev is absolutely necessary.
At least if you were me. I tried the bottom of Friel’s HR-zone2 / upper middle HR-zone2 of Coggan’s “I don’t want to give these but here they are anyway.” Those were too low. For me. On 8-12 hours/week. After 9 months I hired a coach and he pushed up the targets on my zone2 rides, up to what I’m calling all-day HR based on two/three dozen 5-14 hour rides. And then performance increased, like when I self-coached in 2016-2017 and only had the Time Crunched Cyclist and Friel Bible books (and didn’t listen to podcasts, or professors that are not coaches).
