Zone 2 Power - Where should Heart Rate be?

Training
1

Curious if someone can point me to an answer.

I was feeling a bit tired so I moved up my recovery week. What I notice now is the simple rides of 60-75 minutes in zone 2 have my heart rate low. Essentially the whole ride was in recovery mode based on the split provided by intervals.icu. I was looking for a break so the numbers really dont matter but going forward my aim was to add in some longer zone 2 rides. Should I ride at the upper end of Zone 2 to push my heart rate up? Does it matter where my heart rate is?

2

I think this was covered at least a bit in today’s podcast. Try listening in on the podcast today starting at 1:09:50 … This link should take you right to that spot

3

100% personal thing.

depends on your age, how tired you are going into the wo, how hot (or cold) it is, etc.
Just because you HR was higher the “supposed” doesnt mean you had a bad wo.

Now let me listen to the podcast and see how wrong i am.

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4

Low HR during Z2 could be the sign that your FTP has moved up. Since I have added Z2 rides to my calendar, they are quite nice indicator of my FTP progress… or this can be a good cooling during the ride :wink:

5

@brenth what % are you using for power and HR. For example: I use Coggan’s power and HR zones. The power is 56-76% FTP while the HR is 69-84% LTHR.

  1. Make sure you’re not using power % for HR and HR % for power.
  2. Make sure you have a valid threshold HR to derive HR zones.
6

My data comes from Intervals.icu. I update my FTP and Heart max etc in their settings which then gives the %ranges. The site says the % intervals are based on Joe Friel.

i like it as it gives me a weekly summary of time in zone.

7

Yeah Friel’s bottom is Coggan’s top of zone 2.

Possibly too much methodology that doesn’t compare imo. Just curious how you derived your FTP and LTHR?

8

How did you determine max HR?

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9

Highest heart rate achieved in last year 173. , Age 60
Indoors heart rate in last couple of months has been 169 and 171 on different rides ie ramp test. I have only had 2 outdoor rides this year.

10

I’m in the same boat as OP. 56 yo - Mountain bike riding for for lots of years, doing TR since October on Cycleops using virtual power. Did a 90 minute trainer ride yesterday, trying to keep hr around in Z2 of 65% of max (106bpm / 163 max based on observation). Was able to keep power at this HR level at around 206 W. Current FTP is 226. So apparently on this ride I was in Z2 HR wise but was running at 90% of FTP. In in recovery week 1 in LV Sustained Power Build. So maybe a bump in FTP is coming when I ramp test Tuesday.

A related issue is I don’t have power on my mountain bike, so rely on HR and feel for z2 efforts. If I use Z2 HR percentage as a guide I’m riding at 90% FTP even for long steady distance efforts. I’m certainly not targeting the right zone during that additional outside workout.