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2010-08-17 10:31 PM

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Subject: Question for HR gurus
I have not worn my HR monitor for a couple months. I felt I was not listening to my body. Always looking at numbers. Anyways, I have been doing a lot of hill climbing on the bike so I thought I would do some speed intervals on the bike last night and I wore my HR monitor. I was able to hit some really nice speeds last night 24-26 which is really good for me. The problem is I was only able to maintain that for a couple of minutes and was only able to hit 76% HR. Tonight, on the trainer I did some 4x4's about 8 of them. I was beat, but I did not go over 74%. What's the deal? After a year is my musculoskeletal system still lagging? Thanks.

Phil


2010-08-17 10:43 PM
in reply to: #3049453

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Elite
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Spring, TX
Subject: RE: Question for HR gurus

StlPhil - 2010-08-17 10:31 PM I have not worn my HR monitor for a couple months. I felt I was not listening to my body. Always looking at numbers. Anyways, I have been doing a lot of hill climbing on the bike so I thought I would do some speed intervals on the bike last night and I wore my HR monitor. I was able to hit some really nice speeds last night 24-26 which is really good for me. The problem is I was only able to maintain that for a couple of minutes and was only able to hit 76% HR. Tonight, on the trainer I did some 4x4's about 8 of them. I was beat, but I did not go over 74%. What's the deal? After a year is my musculoskeletal system still lagging? Thanks.

Phil

74% and 76% of what?  Max HR , threshold HR or what?

Setting your HR on MaxHR is useless as it doesn't reflect your changes in fitness.  If your numbers are based on a "threshold HR" test, then it sounds to me like your fitness has improved so your HR for similarly hard efforts is lower. 

Bottom line is...who cares about your HR, it sound like your fitness has improved!!!  Lower HR at hard efforts is a GOOD thing!

2010-08-17 10:53 PM
in reply to: #3049466

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Subject: RE: Question for HR gurus
AndrewMT - 2010-08-17 10:43 PM

StlPhil - 2010-08-17 10:31 PM I have not worn my HR monitor for a couple months. I felt I was not listening to my body. Always looking at numbers. Anyways, I have been doing a lot of hill climbing on the bike so I thought I would do some speed intervals on the bike last night and I wore my HR monitor. I was able to hit some really nice speeds last night 24-26 which is really good for me. The problem is I was only able to maintain that for a couple of minutes and was only able to hit 76% HR. Tonight, on the trainer I did some 4x4's about 8 of them. I was beat, but I did not go over 74%. What's the deal? After a year is my musculoskeletal system still lagging? Thanks.

Phil

74% and 76% of what?  Max HR , threshold HR or what?

Setting your HR on MaxHR is useless as it doesn't reflect your changes in fitness.  If your numbers are based on a "threshold HR" test, then it sounds to me like your fitness has improved so your HR for similarly hard efforts is lower. 

Bottom line is...who cares about your HR, it sound like your fitness has improved!!!  Lower HR at hard efforts is a GOOD thing!



Sorry, that's percentage of MHR. I've been tested several times and it's been pretty consistent. I guess my concern is I'm not able to maintain the effort for an extented period of time. No question my fitness has improved. Especially from 20 years of inactivity and not carring around to what amounts to another person.

Just a side note earlier this spring I was able to maintain 85% for 20min.
2010-08-17 11:04 PM
in reply to: #3049474

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Elite
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Subject: RE: Question for HR gurus

StlPhil - 2010-08-17 10:53 PM
AndrewMT - 2010-08-17 10:43 PM

StlPhil - 2010-08-17 10:31 PM I have not worn my HR monitor for a couple months. I felt I was not listening to my body. Always looking at numbers. Anyways, I have been doing a lot of hill climbing on the bike so I thought I would do some speed intervals on the bike last night and I wore my HR monitor. I was able to hit some really nice speeds last night 24-26 which is really good for me. The problem is I was only able to maintain that for a couple of minutes and was only able to hit 76% HR. Tonight, on the trainer I did some 4x4's about 8 of them. I was beat, but I did not go over 74%. What's the deal? After a year is my musculoskeletal system still lagging? Thanks.

Phil

74% and 76% of what?  Max HR , threshold HR or what?

Setting your HR on MaxHR is useless as it doesn't reflect your changes in fitness.  If your numbers are based on a "threshold HR" test, then it sounds to me like your fitness has improved so your HR for similarly hard efforts is lower. 

Bottom line is...who cares about your HR, it sound like your fitness has improved!!!  Lower HR at hard efforts is a GOOD thing!



Sorry, that's percentage of MHR. I've been tested several times and it's been pretty consistent. I guess my concern is I'm not able to maintain the effort for an extented period of time. No question my fitness has improved. Especially from 20 years of inactivity and not carring around to what amounts to another person.

Just a side note earlier this spring I was able to maintain 85% for 20min.

What I'm saying is that % is meaningless.  So this spring you did 85% for 20min and now you do 75% for that same 20 min.  What does that tell you?  Nothing.  Now, if you add in what your speed/pace difference was, then we start to get an idea. 

I understand that the thinking is that you're not working at as high of a capacity of your MHR, and so might be leaving something on the table.  "If you're going faster at 75%, then if you could get back to 85% then you'd be even faster!"  I think you're focused on the wrong thing, which is one of the biggest downsides to having training data available to you. 

Do you use the Hear Rate Monitor for training or just to look at the data afterwards?  It's been debated often here, but I really think basing your training zones on MHR is useless.  Focus on your training and focus on getting faster. To do that you need to know what your current fitness is.  There are several different testing protocols to do this, but almost any of them will give you a more useful number to base your training on than MHR. 

2010-08-18 11:20 AM
in reply to: #3049453

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Subject: RE: Question for HR gurus
I agree with AndrewMT.  Also need to take in to account that your HR is very variable from day to day from external and internal circumstances.

 
2010-08-18 11:41 AM
in reply to: #3049474

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Subject: RE: Question for HR gurus
StlPhil - 2010-08-17 10:53 PM
AndrewMT - 2010-08-17 10:43 PM

StlPhil - 2010-08-17 10:31 PM I have not worn my HR monitor for a couple months. I felt I was not listening to my body. Always looking at numbers. Anyways, I have been doing a lot of hill climbing on the bike so I thought I would do some speed intervals on the bike last night and I wore my HR monitor. I was able to hit some really nice speeds last night 24-26 which is really good for me. The problem is I was only able to maintain that for a couple of minutes and was only able to hit 76% HR. Tonight, on the trainer I did some 4x4's about 8 of them. I was beat, but I did not go over 74%. What's the deal? After a year is my musculoskeletal system still lagging? Thanks.

Phil

74% and 76% of what?  Max HR , threshold HR or what?

Setting your HR on MaxHR is useless as it doesn't reflect your changes in fitness.  If your numbers are based on a "threshold HR" test, then it sounds to me like your fitness has improved so your HR for similarly hard efforts is lower. 

Bottom line is...who cares about your HR, it sound like your fitness has improved!!!  Lower HR at hard efforts is a GOOD thing!



Sorry, that's percentage of MHR. I've been tested several times and it's been pretty consistent. I guess my concern is I'm not able to maintain the effort for an extented period of time. No question my fitness has improved. Especially from 20 years of inactivity and not carring around to what amounts to another person.

Just a side note earlier this spring I was able to maintain 85% for 20min.


Was the max hr test done cycling or another sport?
I'm gonna disagree with the sentiment of the posters above. I think HR is incredibly valuable. I think the problem comes in when people feel one way and their heart says something else they feel like it's inaccurate so they scrap the hr and train on feel. I feel that the hr is always accurate, but I don't always know what it's telling me right away. Hr is a measure of stress on the body and that stress doesn't always come from exercise. Training by rpe is a measure of how you feel and you are getting that data from the most easily manipulated organ in your body. For me, taking stock in both and paying close attention to the times that they don't agree, but not being a slave to either, are the most effective way to train (**for me, not looking to start some 10 page debate***).

I'm not sure what the hr is telling you to be honest. Often fatigue can cause hr to drop. Age may have something to do with it.  Looking at your log for last night you said you could only get up to 76%. Backing that out I come up with a Max HR of 216. You sure it should be that high?


2010-08-18 11:41 AM
in reply to: #3049453

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Subject: RE: Question for HR gurus
As Andrew alluded, one of the biggest limitations of HRM training is the variability it has from day to day, how it can be affected by other variables nor directly impacting the work done in your muscles (heat, sleep, caffeine, etc) and the fact HR lags behind specially in short intense efforts.

Add to that the difficulty it might represent understand what are you measuring if you use MHR as a baseline to define training levels. MHR has a lot of limitations because 1) not everyone achieve a true MHR when testing, 2) testing is very tough making it hard to do it often 3) MHR is affected by age, 4) MHR is not representative of metabolic fitness, etc.

Because of that it is better to try doing a test to guesstimate what is usually refer as Lactate Threshold Heart Rate test (LTHR), which more than trying to measure lactate threshold is more closely related to our maximum lactate steady state or your ability to exercise near a maximal effort for roughly 60 minutes. The reason this is a popular and better way to defining training zones because it has a linear correlation with VO2 max, it is a good performance predictor and it representative of your metabolic fitness.

All this might sounds confusing, but just keep it simple and remember this: do a field test to determine your LTHR (here is a link for a test), set up your training levels (here is a link), use the levels as ways to supplement your training not to dictate it and use perceive exertion to help you do those intense sessions as it will be a better indicator of the work you are doing. Over time you will become experienced as to whats 'normal' or not for you when using a HR and you will learn when using it can be very helpful (long steady rides) and when you can ignore it a bit.

Good luck
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