For more context -
Max HR: Between 198-200, haven’t tried pushing it in a long time.
Training History: On and off training over the years, I’ve tried various different TR plans, custom plans, etc. Consistency hasn’t been my strong suit.
Currently I was doing a lot of polarized training so weeks look something like
But I haven’t actually seen any FTP improvement, in fact I’ve seen it get worse (232 → 226w), granted I’ve been dropping kilos. So going to try a more pyramidal approach instead.
But the main question I have is around whether or not heart rate drift is normal.
My sweet spot hr will drift more into the threshold range, and then threshold will drift up into what seems like almost vo2 max, especially in longer intervals. (I’ve been trying to follow the WKO SS/Threshold progressions)
I figured I’d sort of hit a constant HR, but maybe that happens if you’re significantly more trained?
I hover around the same FTP and haven’t completed a structured workout in a quite a while though I generally ride between 12-15 hours a week. My heart rate drifted up during this SS workout last week. I don’t know if this info is helpful.
yes, and if your ftp is set correctly, and you are well training, then HR will ramp up at the beginning of intervals and then flatten out. With short warmups on most TR workouts, you will also tend to see higher HR with subsequent intervals.
Your April/May training pic appears to show that, as does your more recent pic.
HR zones should be personalized and ideally set using your HR on a long 30 to 30+ minute long threshold effort. HR is also impacted by heat and other factors. So even if you have reliable HR response to specific interval sessions, it will tend to be higher when exercising in warmer conditions (inside or outside).
Those are general statements, and without digging into your data its hard to be more specific.
This seems perfectly normal. What i generally see is about a 2 to 3 bpm increase from set to set. Today i did a sweetspot workout (15min@92%) and first interval started around 155bpm, slowly rising to 160bpm. Second set started around 157 and rising to about 162. That’s something i’ve consistently seen in these type of workouts.
while there is some power increases from 1st to 2nd interval (and a decrease for 3rd), do you see how the red heart rate increases with every interval? Thats perfectly normal and expected.
The “red zone” in those charts is for heart rate. Basically I’ve done a bunch of 30+ minute flat time trials, and depending on temperature my HR flattens out around 160bpm. That zone is 157-163bpm. So thats what I expect to see when doing threshold intervals.
Probably the wrong answer for you, as I’m naturally more of a grinder and don’t struggle much with sweet spot. With some training - not even SS - its pretty easy to go out and do 1x30 or 1x45 upper tempo / low SS without feeling too uncomfortable… yes I look forward to finishing, but not too much fatigue.
Yes, drift is completely normal but if you work specifically on time to exhaustion, you can almost eliminate it, assuming weather, fueling, etc are not changing.
Here are 2 samples, with LTHR being 178bpm and for both drift below 1%
Let’s just Sweet Spot falls between high Z3 / low Z4.
I just finished a Spruce -1 there’s almost a 10 bpm heart rate difference between the avg of the two intervals: 166 vs 176. And on the second interval I’m finishing it (very tired) and my heart rate is at 180 which is basically 90% of my max.
Could this be any indicator I’m trying to possibly do too much too quickly given my training? I’m trying to follow the WKO Sweet Spot Progression and go up every week
Dunno. Searched the forum and it appears that Spruce -1 is 2x25-min at 85%. I’ve got (many) longer examples where my HR is freakishly flat (around 84% HRmax). Its both a thing of beauty and reminder I’m more of a diesel than a sports car.
Yet sometimes I’m “off” - one example I pulled up it was upper 80s plus day-after-Napa-wine-drinking plus high stress at work… and HR drifted up to 90% HRmax during a longer ~60-minute tempo interval. Understandable in that context.
The team leader for WKO is the coach behind JoinBaseCamp. I did it this year, and can 100% tell you his 16 week winter base group coaching program had no progression that looked like that. Much smaller progressions. From my point-of-view that slide is a concept (listen to the WKO webinar again), and I’m a huge supporter of WKO and JoinBaseCamp and Tim Cusick’s coaching philosophy (big picture, I have developed my own opinions).
That said, at the end of the 16 week program I went out and did a 1x64-min at 86% (temp: upper 70s) and it had my signature freakishly flat HR:
Ran out of time, was happy to finish but could have kept pushing for 90-min.
My current philosophy is to lay down a strong endurance foundation, and layer that with a lot of low/high cadence work, short power work, and some (barely if any progression) tempo/SS work although I personally find 1-min hard start / criss-cross / burst formats to be “better.” Under my coach we did a lot of what forum members might consider to be ridiculously short intervals, the strict tempo work was often just 2x15 bookends, or the surprise 1x30 or 1x60 tempo starts on long 3-5 hour rides. The JoinBaseCamp programming was also interesting, somewhat of a grab bag too, some longer stuff with sit/stand, some longer with bursts, and a few progression sequences slowly going from 2x20 to 2x25-min (don’t hold me to specifics). In short, under both systems there was a lack of strict linear progression, however under both I was fully capable of going out and slaying a 1x90-min around 85% (+/-) and continuing with training.
Just wanted to put that out there, as I’ve learned strict linear progression isn’t required to jump to doing longer 60+ minute tempo efforts.
As other athletes here stated, it’s definitely normal to see your HR creep up like that during longer intervals. As you get fitter, you may notice your HR start to “plateau” a bit more.
This isn’t something we’d worry about too much – all part of something we’d expect to see in training.
For sweetspot the RPE stays the same. Like WindWarrior i would also count myself as a diesel so RPE isn’t that high to begin with. When you’re working at threshold RPE gets a bit higher, but it also depends on the type of intervals. 5x 10 with 5 minutes rest are way easier for me then something like 3x 18min with 10 minutes rest, towards the end.
fwiw, during JoinBaseCamp winter group coaching there were 4 workout reviews a week (2 coaches, 2 workouts: Tuesday & Thursday). These were ~10 minute coach analysis videos and I watched all of them. While I said “freakishly” the simple fact is that most of those in winter group coaching had stable and plateauing heart rate on longer intervals. But not everyone, and Coach Tim or Coach Namrita would briefly comment on that as well.
So while it’s possible for some, don’t measure HR response against others. Measure HR response against yourself and see if it improves or if thats just the way you are wired.
157bpm (278W) vs 162bpm (283W). RPE definitely increased during the second interval, to the point where I had to take a 30s recovery where I dropped power to endurance before completing the interval. It was warm but not overly hot, and enough wind to keep it reasonable.
For comparison, here’s the effects of fatigue and heat/humidity from last weekend:
1x30 @ 266W, HR averaged 168bpm and was steadily drifting towards the end. Last 5 mins were 266W avg at 172bpm avg/175bpm max. Never managed a second SS interval, had to drop to mid-tempo to finish off!
Drift is normal for most people, and it will depend on how your body is feeling and other environmental factors.
