I’ve been looking at my endurance rides from the last six months and I’ve noticed that when in my zone 2 power range (~135w to 183w) I’m almost always averaging 140+ BPM (~77% of max heart rate) and usually see a high in there somewhere around 150 BPM.
From what I’ve read, I should be targeting HR of around 60-70% of max HR. Or have I misunderstood that? I’ve seen a number of threads on this, but almost all of them in the other direction (heart rate too low for zone 2 power). I would consider a HR of 140 to be my “ride all day” rate so I’m fairly comfortable there, but I don’t know if I’m going too hard for what should be a pretty easy session.
FTP has been around 240 during this period, and my max heart rate is 181bpm.
Heart rate is highly individual and depends on a lot of factors. For instance, after a hard workout, add a 15- or 30-minute endurance workout and look at your heart rate. You’ll find that it is significantly higher (in my case 10–15 bpm). Other factors are sleep (short-term and long-term), overall health, stress, etc.
I’d just do workouts by power and let heart rate be what it is. If it is unusual, though, take note.
Also Zone guides vary, this one says Z2 is 65-75%. I personally keep it to round 66-68% on group rides but don’t fret if it momentarily goes over 70% on solo rides it never will.
Highest HR in the last 6 months (ramp test). It’s a touch higher than what I’d expect from the 220-Age calc (175 in my case), but it wasn’t a spike so I’m relatively confident it’s a good number.
Even at 75% I’d be above it on average. I’m getting highs of 80-84% (this is on the trainer, so very consistent conditions).
In my experience you don’t reach your HR max in a ramp test. The highest HR I have seen on a ramp test was 175 bpm. In several races, I topped out at 184–185 bpm.
Its a while since I’ve done ramp tests (circa 2020) my results were only circa 95% of my current MHR every good time trial Ive done has exceeded it by 5-9bpm recently and you can probably add a couple of beets to my 2020 MHR putting at 94%.
Edit the most I’ve hit indoors recently (Feb 24) is 97% on Piute-5 which is close to a long TT
Seems fine to me, it’s on the upper end of z2 but you’re riding indoors and that’s always worse lol. HR could also be a bit higher if you don’t have as much cooling inside.
As others have said HR is very individual so if your RPE feels right I would not worry too much.
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This is a not very accurate calculation. It’s old population estimate for 20 something year olds that somehow stuck in the culture. For me it’s off by 25bpm.
For endurance rides, I’d go by fatigue levels. If an endurance ride leaves you trashed and tired then back off a bit.
The adaptations for riding at the top of the zone, middle of the zone, and bottom of the zone are all essentially the same. It’s number of muscle contractions over time. You’ll generate more fatigue at the top of the zone.
Yeah, nothing special about it. FYI, power and HR zones are frequently not aligned. This is normal.
But as usual, there is “it depends”: if you are following high volume plan (>16h/week, arbitrary number actually), then you might want to keep HR low for Z2 (i.e. below LT1 HR), not to disturb your nervous system too much, so you can push volume even higher.
If this is the case, then question becomes: what is my LT1 HR? This can be measured in lab with ramp test, or during ride, simply do talk test – if you can talk with full sentences, you are ok.
For myself, I have learned over time that with ~60% of FTP (= 146bpm), I can push volume really high but as soon as I hit above ~63% too frequently, it’ll be borrowed time, I’ll lose motivation in 3-4 weeks. Because this takes so long time, it is somewhat hard to learn this number.
To add to hlab and others; maxHR is a much abused concept. It took me too long to find out that it’s the rate your heart will not go above even as effort increases for several minutes…it’s not the single peak reading during any activity, certainly not in a cycling ramp test.
If you have a Garmin or similar, I have found the lactate threshold heart rate estimates to be much more relevant and reasonable, although that may be due to the running I do.
Max HR doesn’t bring much to the table in terms of training, whereas lactate threshold HR is a much better benchmark for setting zones.
@Textuality I’d recommend finding your LTHR and using that to set your HR zones to see how they align with your power zones.
All of your power zones are based on your FTP, not your max power, so it makes more sense to go this route. With all things considered though, just know that power and HR zones are all estimations based on your FTP and LTHR, so while they can align pretty closely, they might not always be mirror images of each other.
When training in zone 2, I usually reference HR instead of power since what you’re looking for when training in those easier zones is more internal effort-based rather than power-based. Your body’s metabolism changes based on the effort you’re putting out (not necessarily the power you’re producing), so monitoring that via HR is a better way to gauge your body’s true RPE.
Was listening to a Peter Attia podcast where the discussion seemed to indicate that zone 2 for a lot of people (HR, not power) was higher than a lot of calculations indicate.
Temped to do a vo2max / metabolic test, but there’s not any options near me.
Not really sure how LTHR is calculated. I’d have to look into it.
