Bike HR Training Zones
Hi all,
On Friday I did a time trial on the bike at the lab. It was part of a university study I volunteered to help with.
It was a 10K trial and they measured my HR, power and time. I have done two of these exact tests two weeks apart and got really good improvement. My question is can I use this power data to re-tweak my HR bike zones? I definitely see a lot of improvement working with the HR zones on the bike but I want to make sure I have the proper zones.
Also, can I use a VO2 Max value from a recent test to adjust the running and biking HR zones?
Thanks!
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Comments
How long was the 10kTT timewise? What matters is your LTHR, and that initially improves with conditioning but then stays pretty constant. What changes is the amount of work (pace, power) @ that HR. If your power went up, then sure--use a different number. But LTHR should be pretty much the same, and running HR is usually higher than cycling, and cycling is higher than swimming.
Caveat: EN has its own test protocol. If there was no "blowout" effort, you may want to do a short (3-5min) all-out effort and use an online Monod calculator for wattage. That gives a pretty good estimate of FTP as it takes into account the anaerobic component of a "fresh" 20 min TT.
A calculator is here:http://www.cyclingpowerlab.com/MonodCriticalPower.aspx
Thanks Chris!
First TT: 23 min, Avg HR: 151, Avg RPM: 71, Avg power: 178 Watts
Second TT: 21 min, Avg HR: 153, Avg RPM: 75, Avg power: 198 Watts
So everything went up, my question was basically how I tweak the HR zones to keep improving.
I’ve used new Avg HR in the EN calculator and got new HR zones and I will use them.
I guess I need a power meter….
A 20 watt spread in two weeks seems high in your power/ watts as you figured out how to test perhaps?
A very important part of your testing is to insure you had a great warm up as written in your plan. A two week period is not a great gauge for a retest as 6 weeks of training or so is much better.
I agree with you to use your new zones too.
I would not sweat HR down to the exact beat. For me, for example, I know that LT is 158-162 or so. At 164 things start to get rough. If I see 170 jesus shortly follows with choir seraphic.
So based on what you've put up, I'd say that for your 20s you're looking at 151-153, which you should hit about 3-5 minutes in if you paced right. But yes--I'd recommend power and ditch the strap. Cheapest solution: wired PTs go on ebay for 300 bucks.