I am currently doing traditional base Mid-volume 2 (after doing SSBLV1). I wanted to work more on my cardio and experience some longer rides than what we have have in SSB.
I recently added a HR monitor while doing my workout. I am aware of the whole discussion about the importance or non-importance of HR monitor in a power driven training but i was thinking let’s just get the HR and see what it says…
Then i got quite shocked when looking at the data after my hawk mountain ride this morning. It was a really bad workout where i felt tired from the start and had to bail out half way. (did the same workout a week before at a different time of the day, unfortunately without HR data)
The ride is tempo ride and this is what i have got in terms of zones:
Can’t believe a Z3 tempo workout give me a Z5 HR.
It was a bad day ok, and i trained first thing in the morning, instead of training in the middle of the day for all my other workouts. But does that explain it all?
What does that mismatch says about my current fitness? Do i need to do way more endurance rides? Is my FTP set way too high?
Have you ever tracked your heart rate data in the past? It’s possible that you just have a naturally high heart rate when working out. My resting heart rate is in the 40-50s, but even at my peak fitness (when I was a runner), my easy and recovery runs runs still caused my heart rate to almost immediately be in the upper end of zone 4. Long story short, I think heart rate can be a good tool, but only when used in conjunction with other objective data, as well as perceived exertion.
I haven’t really tracked it in the past. Well noted, maybe there is nothing to panic about then. I will see how it goes for the next few weeks, maybe as you say i just have a naturally high HR. Thanks!
Which is garbage for an athlete. My max HR by that formula has me at 20 year old, I am closer to 45year old. Setting your max hr too low as that formula calculate will make it appear that all the work you done was in z4/5 but a more accurate max HR will have you in zones closer to your power zones.
You could cycle hard up a very long hill or do a very intense work out with long intervals to find out what it’s more likely to be. Itll probablybe 1 or 2 bpm above what you get if you’ve paced to near the max
IMHO, the best method for setting heart rate zones is the Friel method. Go as hard as you can for 30mins and take the average heart rate of the last 20 mins to setup zones based on the number.