I’m 66 and I need to know if sometimes I need to dial back training intervals if my HR is approaching >90% of my max… sometimes in sweetspot my HR will start getting up around the 90% mark. I always use HR as a marker of how hard it is effecting me.
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Yes, cyclocross.
and mtb, power is a mess but seeing the HR pinged high will tell you more than power. Also since it’s a reaction it tells you what state you are in (think before the sprint of a crit, power will be low, you might not sprint your best but you started with a high HR)
Power = Action , Hear Rate = Reaction
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I use a HRM 24/7 from a general fitness perspective I get to see how my HR responds to external factors such a fatigue, stress, sleep, alcohol etc.
From an internal factor I get to see how it responds to training and improved fitness.
During workouts I can build a picture of how training improves my fitness by comparing average HR and RPE over a number of workouts. But I don’t use it in isolation and it doesn’t dictate my workout intensity, that is solely driven by power.
Unlike some other responders I don’t modify my workouts or increase my recovery due to HR. I only use how I actually feel to decided if I’m over fatigued, or ready for additional work
This. Understanding both as they relate to one another will tell you if you’re “on” (or if you’re not) and take into consideration environmental/life stresses.
e.g. if you’re struggling to generate the power you know you could normally sustain for a long time (i.e. FTP or CP) and your HR is through the roof then maybe you haven’t recovered properly, dehydrated, getting sick. On the other hand, if you’re at your FTP/CP and feeling strong with a steady HR below what you’d expect it to be then you’re in the zone…
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I completely agree.
I think the problem is that there are so many soundbites and clickbait headlines that are saying, in relation to interval training tools/metrics: “Power is everything”, “HR is dead”, that many make a knee-jerk reaction and believe that measurement of heart rate has no use whatsoever.
Yes, power measurement is absolutely superior to measuring only heart rate when interval training, but both together in combination, related to one another, they are extremely useful.
So, yes, heart rate measurement is very relevant, and there most definitely IS a case for it.
Power shows what your body is producing. HR is the effort required to do so. If you use the two carefully it can be very powerful. However, ignore your HR at your peril.
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At the start of a race I watch my heart rate so I don’t pop. RPE is hard to gauge under those circumstances. Especially if it’s a long race where I have to pace myself. Problem is, during the last race I picked up someone else’s hr monitor and it was reading 180 then 190 then over 200… where my max is 186. I was a little shocked until I figured out what was going on.
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I love using HR to reflect upon during workouts. It does not dictate my workout. It’s high when I’ve been off for a week. It’s low-ish when I’m fatigued. It creeps up every interval. It’s only used in retrospect. RPE is a better gauge than HR for me no doubt.
However, I keep it off screen when I race. I get nervous. I sit at the start line listening to the official with my HR hovering around 140-150bpm. Twice, in 3 hour road races I averaged 178 and 180bpm. If I were to see that during the race it probably would have freaked me out and potentially raised my HR even more out of anxiety or nervousness. Thus, I use it in hindsight only, and more just because it’s interesting. I blow up from power, not from HR.
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HR is still a valuable metric for me, but I use it in conjunction with other metrics including RPE.
As mentioned above by @mmiloou, it can be really helpful mountain biking when you are hitting a lot of short, hard efforts. Sometimes my HR tells me to dial it back a little, especially early in a ride where my RPE doesn’t feel that high. However other times it tells me to stop lollygagging around and start to put down the hammer! Intensity factor (IF) is also pretty valuable mountain biking (useful on hilly road rides too).
Since getting a Garmin Fenix, I now always keep an eye on my resting heart rate during the night. I felt a cold coming on a couple of weeks ago and my resting HR bumped up close to 10 beats. A few days later I was feeling better and the HR was back to my baseline. After a really hard day riding I will usually see a bump as well.
HR dropping between intervals is another measure I like to watch. Apparently this is a metric a lot of MMA fighters use as well, where they track how quickly their HR drops after 1 min, which is reflective of the break they have between rounds. I remember George St. Pierre talking about this.
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Forgot to mention, one of the most important aspects of a HRM used in conjunction with a PM is that you can track whether or not you are improving fitness or not. Whatever interval(s) just divide NP by average HR type of thing…
That’s the Firstbeat VO2max estimation used by Garmin. I can’t do it manually - I need an algorithm to gather the data over time, calculate and present a number.
If that somehow was built-in to TR, in combination with automatic FTP/scaling, I’d use it.
I don’t use Garmin anything so that’s news to me. I use Training Peaks but, you can see the NP and HR of individual intervals on TR as well in the summery of the workout. No algorithm needed unless I’m not understanding you?
Yes, but you’d have to gather more data, over a longer period of time, to cancel out the naturally occuring fluctuations of heart rate. Otherwise it would look like your fitness is fluctuating from workout to workout, which it isn’t.
Look through this:
I would definitely argue that fitness/fatigue is quite dynamic and changes frequently… how else would people have good days and bad days?
I think some people who criticize HR because of some variability that they see are not digging deep enough to figure out… or really care as to why they are seeing a large variation.
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All I’m saying is the relationship of power/HR is very valuable and the point of the thread. Whatever time frame the user chooses to tease out trends is up to them. Whatever interval type they choose is up to them as well. I assume people who use HR are savvy enough to understand the day to day variability in HR and take this into account. But, if not and reading yeah I’d say use it similar to how you approach ramp testing. Block to block. Similar conditions. Similar intervals period etc…
I use HR to compare my performance with past rides and gage my level of fatigue. I raised my ftp from 252 to 264 in November and find that comparing my performance to the same ride from 1 or 2 years ago with lower ftp.
Spruce Knob (well rested for 2019 ride) 2/19 NP=209, HRave=142; 2/18 NP=197, HRave=143
Big Squaw (tired for 2019 ride) 2/29 NP=182, HRave=135; 4/17 NP=174, HRave=128
I stopped use HR reading when I bought my first PM 3 years ago.
The reading of HR was useful when there were no PM, but it has limits that make it useless if one has a PM.
The only interesting one for me is aerobic decoupling (power-to-HR ratio) on aerobic endurance rides.
As per hugo1 above, my Garmin Edge 520 bike computer automatically calculates vo2max because I have power meter and HRM. While not terribly interesting by itself, I can see some changes in aerobic fitness over time. Look at it from time-to-time. My Apple Watch also estimates vo2max for walks (I don’t run, but it does that as well).
Have found no value tracking HR while strength training in the gym, and don’t even bother collecting 1 sec HR data while lifting.
Automatically collecting RHR, HR, and HRV data (plus sleep too) on a daily basis. Spent a lot of time in 2018 looking at that data, however I personally haven’t found much value and almost completely stopped looking at it.
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I’m the opposite. During a race I only display time for crits and distance for road races. I figure no amount of data will help you keep up in a race.
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