FTP testing, and the HRMax of a 25-year-old (which sadly I'm not)
What does this tell me? last night, I did a 5' & 20' bike test, and got up to (and sustained) a HR of 195 in each. I'm 50. Did I generate enough power to take me Back to the Future to when I was 25 and had that kind of HRMax? Is it 1995 again? Should I wear my 'Rage Against the Machine' t-shirt?
The only difference between last night and the last number of years of "OS Week 1" tests are that I came into last night's test with ZERO intensity since October. Just Ae riding and running, and these kept to a hard cap of 135bpm. ( Customarily, I'll have at least a few weeks of hard rides in my legs before testing.)
the outcome: (calculated) FTP was 1 watt less than my "OS week 4" test outcome last year.
recent physical and bloodwork and all is normal. I wasn't fatigued, but not totally rested either.
WTF???? 195???????
Comments
Hi @Dave Tallo
The 220 minus your age has been proven to be inaccurate. I would mostly avoid putting much weight into any kind of generic formula simply because everyone is so unique (health, background, genetics). As an example, why would you use the same formula as another untrained 50 year old to determine a max heart rate? The heart is a muscle, years of endurance training, etc etc would lead me to believe your heart would be far stronger and better suited to sustain a high heart rate than most others your age.
I would also be curious to know if during your test this 195 bpm was a momentary spike (equipment malfunction) or if you held a heart rate that climbed steadily through 170, 180, 190 to finally max at 195.
Not sure, but a heart rate like that (outside of other life stresses, hydration level, other outside factors) may be telling you that muscularly you are fit (you can produce the power) but the high end of your cardiovascular fitness is lagging after months of easier aerobic training. (?)
it climbed to 195 and this was sustained for a while (minutes, not seconds).
Pics , data, and files or it didnt happen. Just kidding I know you have enough background to know whats real, although I'd like to see it. I've experienced similar but not as extreme. My normal threshold HR for that kinda thing is 170-175, I've seen sustained 185ish during 20-40' threshold efforts usually when I am just starting an intensity block after a break , its also usually on a trainer where warmer. Will be interesting to circle back to what your data is after 3-4 weeks threshold work again.
Dude ... you know I have a ‘data opaque’ policy!
the hr dip is when my leg went numb - iliac endofibrosis causes this.
Like @tim cronk I assume that this is not an equipment error, although I do know that my Garmin wrist HR routinely reads 150-170 during the first 5-20 minutes of a run, when I know (a) my max HR is probably 160 now and (b) I would normally see 118-132 for that effort level.
More germaine, I routinely see markedly elevated HRs for the same RPE when I pick things up after mostly downhill skiing for 2-3 months. EG, the past two weeks I;ve been seeing 140-144 HRs when I do my ABP rides on Zwift, compared 112 to low 120's last fall in final push to Kona. I also know that a few weeks of HIIT will bring that right back down. The heart is very easy to train, and the aging heart (even up to 75 y/o) is capable of achieving the same compliance (strength/elasticity) as a 25-30 y/o, though not the same max HR. (I learned that at a Kona Medical conference in 2004, and only remember it now because I documented that in the book I just put online.)
@Dave Tallo It would be interesting to see how quickly your heart rate recovery is in response to different workouts. We all know the faster the HR comes down, the fitter we are.
The athlete trying to build fitness while doing HIITS might be in trouble if they don't let HR recover before going into another hard interval.
@Al Truscott ... strength and elasticity ... I like that! Just like our brains.
@Dave Tallo @tim cronk Any thoughts on that versus how quickly your heart rate dropped back to sub-120 bpm? 1-2 minutes? Do you typically recover 60-70 beats in that time frame? Curious because I did a threshold ride last night and after my last set my heart rate dropped an average of 15-16 beats per minute. So it took me 3 minutes to go from 185-140s.
Im 54 and my HR will go to about 190 when starting back up again after a little layoff. After getting in bike shape again it’s the mid-high180s for 10-20 seconds and 170s for quite a while if I keep pushing. I think it’s a good sign your HR went up there when reacting to the intensity.