Heart rate + threshold + ftp

Training
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Hey everyone, I’ll try to keep this short. I got sick about a month ago, in the middle of when training had been going well. I came back, into a recovery week. Went into my ramp test and I improved. Jumped into my threshold workouts, got the first one done…but have been struggling with my threshold workouts since then. Been having some difficulty with VO2 and Anaerobic as well.

Heart rate has been super high, so I started doing tempo/sweet spot and those have been feeling pretty decent. So I was thinking that my FTP was too high, but when I did the ftp detection, it suggested that I go up 2-3 watts! Looking for advice! Should I just keep it easy(ish) for a bit until I get back to normal? Or what?

Thanks in advance!

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Try a Kolie Moore test and see what comes of it compared to your other result! :+1:

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What is your perceived effort @sirmccarthy ? After I had my operation in 2019 my HR shot through the roof but it was stable and felt normal for me.

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Tempo or Sweetspot, Medium-Hard. Threshold -Hard-Very hard. I think it depends on how tired I am. My max is 195, but being in the the 180s for extended periods of times are really uncomfortable.

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To be completely honest, that looks so dang intimidating. I am losing the mental warfare game…and it’s like…why would I want to do that? :frowning: Definitely not a fun mental spot to be.

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Those were my thoughts initially, until I tried it. I actually prefer it to the ramp and and 20 min test now. It’s a test to failure so you won’t go to the end (although you could).
The result will give you an FTP figure that will a) offer some comparison to other tests and b) if vastly different, ensure future threshold workouts are manageable.

Honestly, try it!! It’s been a game changer for me when taking on threshold workouts.

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Do you know what you were I’ll with? COVID?

If it was COVID, there’s a whole thread on this forum. General rule of thumb is to back things off. Might be worth having a read through.

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If the higher heart rate feels harder than pre illness (the perceived effort) its time to scale it back a wee bit temporarily. However if it feels no harder than it ever has, ignore the HR, and just look at it out of curiosity post session.

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Tests were all negative, it was just super bad sinus stuff, plus fever.

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My $0.02: Sickness + recovery week led to probably long needed rest period. You came back, tested when you were super fresh/peaked, and now you’re coming off that peak. Your FTP is set too high.

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Thanks Kurt…time to figure out how low I need to go.

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Have you looked at intervals.icu? They have some metrics that can compare how your heart rate (average) is against your normalized power (or maybe average?). HR efficiency I believe.

But I used this metric to compare when i was fresh off of COVID to my rides pre COVID. That helped tell me where my heart rate was for a given workout or zone pretty well. I’m about 3 weeks post positive test and it’s been really helpful to chill my anxiety about returning to training

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Efficiency Factor is a common metric to a lot of platforms (TrainingPeaks/WKO, et. al.) I agree it’s a pretty good one to look at coming off of illness, but also just in general when doing long steady state efforts as well.

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