33 Year old Male, back on the bike 1 year after a 7 year period of doing NOTHING. 6'2" currently 215 give or take.
Max HR 198, lowest recorded resting RH 49-50
Max Heart rate has gone up to 198 from 192 a year ago. Last 2 hour ride, average HR was 162, but it wasnt that hard of a ride. I thought my lactate threshold was about 165 to 170. The first hard effort over 180 really hurts, but after that, Im fine @ 180. On the way home I was between 180 and 190 for 16 minutes, and I think I could ride @ 180 for an hour or so. Here's the graph, my speed sensor was loose, and giving me readings between 28 and 14, but near the end before the cool down, I was trading pulls with my partner @ 26-28mph. We had 3-4 mph head wind.
I hear a lot of people say my max should be less than 190, and my AT @ 159 or so, but to be honest, at 159, I can sit and converse, talk on the phone, do long division in my head etc.... 159 is barely an effort it seems.
Is there a way to figure my Anerobic Theshold? I read that I could do a 20 mile TT and use my average HR as a guide.
and ric, I don't even weight train!
Ric Stern
08-03-04, 03:18 PM
33 Year old Male, back on the bike 1 year after a 7 year period of doing NOTHING. 6'2" currently 215 give or take.
Max HR 198, lowest recorded resting RH 49-50
Max Heart rate has gone up to 198 from 192 a year ago. Last 2 hour ride, average HR was 162, but it wasnt that hard of a ride. I thought my lactate threshold was about 165 to 170. The first hard effort over 180 really hurts, but after that, Im fine @ 180. On the way home I was between 180 and 190 for 16 minutes, and I think I could ride @ 180 for an hour or so. Here's the graph, my speed sensor was loose, and giving me readings between 28 and 14, but near the end before the cool down, I was trading pulls with my partner @ 26-28mph. We had 3-4 mph head wind.
having that type of sustainable heart rate to HRmax seems fine/normal.
I hear a lot of people say my max should be less than 190, and my AT @ 159 or so, but to be honest, at 159, I can sit and converse, talk on the phone, do long division in my head etc.... 159 is barely an effort it seems.
don't listen to them! i've no idea how they would know that you should have a HRmax of 190 b/min. it's entirely individual for everyone.
Is there a way to figure my Anerobic Theshold? I read that I could do a 20 mile TT and use my average HR as a guide.
and ric, I don't even weight train!
anaerobic threshold is an outdated misnomer that has no real meaning. additionally, above you mention lactate threshold, and i'm not sure whether you're thinking these are the same metrics or not?
additionally, LT isn't a heart rate value, the definition is the workload (power output - Watts in cycling, or velocity - m/s or km/hr in running) that elicits a 1mmol/L in lactate over exercise baseline levels, i.e., a lactate of ~ 2.x mmol/L, or the workload that elicits a lactate of 2.5 mmol/L.
i'm not sure what you're trying to do, but if you're trying to find the average HR that you TT at, then ride a TT to find it out, but realise that the figure isn't static, and changes due to many factors (e.g., altitude, fatigue, dehydration, cadence, power output).
ric
Bolo Grubb
08-03-04, 03:23 PM
I am 36 years old and as best as I can tell my max heart is 194. my lowest recorded resting HR is 61
I got that figure by trying to sprint up a long steep hill, going as fast and as hard as I could. I almost fell over because I was so wiped out that I almost failed to clip out.
I had to do this 3 times to make it up that hill. Starting on a steep hill when tired is a pain in the ass
My HR monitor recorded 194 as my max that day and that is the highest I have ever hit
Smoothie104
08-03-04, 07:10 PM
Tuesday is our regular weekly bloodbath down here. I only slept 5 hours or so last night, after 3 margaritas, huge plate of mexican food, and some of the ole "in-n-out" interval training (wink, wink)
I tried to hydrate as the day went on, but i know i was pretty dry when the ride started, I rode out to where it started, rode the neutral zone with the group, thats the 3 red dots in the middle, around min :50 as its a constant 21mph, since im ticking at 140, im obviously sitting in. As soon as we got to the loop, BAM, I drilled it, trying to split the group up and force a selection, from mint 57 to about 1:05 it was a lot of attacks and counters into the headwind. Once we got sorted, I kept the pressure on, my goal was to keep the HR above 180 for 45 min. If it started to come down, I'd attack again. and I did except for those 2 dips into the 170's it was downhill, with a U turn at the bottom. I spent a lot of time above 190, that was on the attack trying to get clear, but it wasnt going to happen today. I did completely blow up on a hill, and have a new max of 202!! whoo hoo!
ric, I have a time trial coming up, 20 miles, should I try and run it @ 180 HR as long as I am sufficiently warmed up?
any help would be appreciated.
Ric Stern
08-04-04, 01:19 AM
it's impossible to say *exactly* but, that may appear to be the right ball-park. note that HR can vary tremendously at the same intensity due to many factors. for e.g., if i race on two consecutive days, my power is the same, but my HR on the second day can be 10 - 15 bpm lower than the first day.
additionally, you may not have reached HRmax either -- in 20 years of racing (yikes!) on only 3 occasions have i reached HRmax, it's not pleasant going that hard (and would generally require you to slow down an awful lot afterwards).
ric
Smoothie104
08-04-04, 01:32 AM
Ric, I imagine there is some sort of physiological safeguard in place to keep me from killing myself right? Will I start to black out or something? Ever since I got this monitor part of me wants to keep pushing that little number higher and higher.
202 felt pretty bad, it was like an icepick in the chest, it felt bad enough that If I didn't have the monitor on, I would have slowed down. 3.3 times a second, thats nuts!
Ric Stern
08-04-04, 01:55 AM
it's called pain and fatigue, and is the reason we have those effects. some people can push through that pain barrier but it's very rare (i've only seen it once in 20 years) and after a while will result in loss of conciousness. certain drugs can affect the pain barrier (e.g., amphetamines) and is the reason why Tommy Simpson (British cyclist) died in the '67 TdF.
ric
Smoothie104
08-05-04, 12:26 AM
Ric,
today I went out for a recovery ride, after the hard efforts made yesterday, and while most of the ride was "Zone 2" 152 bpm and below, I did end up increasing intensity near the end in order to finish first. (stupid, I know, but it was personal today)
The effort was about 28 minutes in length, and I kept my HR between 176 and 183. I admit I felt a general feeling of tiredness at this level, which I usually don't but I attribute it to the previous 2 days of hard riding. The tiredness never got any worse, it just hung around and made its presence known. I went above 190 for the last 4 minutes to keep the chasers at bay, So I think that once well rested, I could sustain an HR of 180-185 for an hour TT no problem. My question is this..
How would I go about increasing my power output at this heart rate?
Ric Stern
08-05-04, 01:28 AM
Ric,
How would I go about increasing my power output at this heart rate?
it doesn't matter what your HR is... at say TT power my HR can vary ~ 15 bpm depending on what i've been doing training wise.
increasing TT power is done via training at zones 2,3, and 4. however, at some point you'll also need to train at zone 5 and 6 to increase your 'ceiling'. this article although about training with power gives details of HR zones i refer to above
http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=powerstern
ric
C_Heath
08-05-04, 04:07 PM
Isnt it bad to work your heart at 200 plus bpm?
Im just starting to get into the fitness thing at age 31 and I dont think I want to push my heart up into the 200's do I?
thx
Ric Stern
08-05-04, 05:24 PM
assuming there's nothing wrong with you, you don't have a history of family heart disease, pr other specific conditions (e.g., including but not limited to hypertension) and you've been checked by your doc (because i infer you are just starting an exercise regime) then you should be okay. obviously, exercising at maximum or close to max on frequent basis, wouldn't be good for you (lots of fatigue).
ric
Smoothie104
08-05-04, 09:52 PM
Ric, would it be better for him to do some "base miles" before pegging the HRM like that?
I spent 4 months in the fall and winter riding 10 hours/200 miles a week in zones 1 and 2 only to appease my Doctor Father before winding it up to much higher rates..
Ric Stern
08-06-04, 12:59 AM
there's research showing excellent benefits to (e.g.) cardiac rehab patients using intervals.