HazeT

Hi

I've started to follow a structured training plan for the first time in my life in the hopes I get better, my problem lies in the fact that some workouts ask me to stay at HRZ 2 and 90+ cadence and so far to me it's either one or the other.
I can comfortably sustain 90+ cadence for longer than 2 hours but my heart rate will stay in the middle of zone 3 instead of the required zone 2.
What are your opinions on this trade off, on such trainings if my HRZ starts to drift to 3+, should I lower the cadence or stick with it in zone 3?

And what do you feel is the best way to find your heart rate zones, I got 3 different zones based on 3 methods:
1-The infamous value - age formula.
2-From my highest hr, 183, climbing a 14% grade hill.
3-30 minutes high intensity effort taking the average HR for the last 20 mins and inputing in a formula.

caloso

Are you in your lowest gear? If not, try gearing down.

HazeT

Definitely not in the lowest, I'm almost cross chaining though

caloso

Try doing these in your small ring.

Willbird

IMHO method three will give you zones based on LTHR which in my neophyte POV is the best method. You can use trainerroad to get a LTHR too, but you may have to buy some hardware to get it working. An ANT usb stick for a laptop......or a wahoo blue speed cadence if you want to use IOS.

revchuck 

+1. Even with a compact, 20+mph is no problem in the small ring. That should give you lots of room.

rpenmanparker 

Unless your gearing on the bike is way too high for your fitness level, there is no reason you can't ride in both your desired HRZ and at a cadence of 90...ON FLAT GROUND WITH NO WIND. If you turn into a monster wind or hit a huge climb, you could run out of lower gears trying to keep both HRZ and cadence at the desired level. Cadence is for efficiency while HRZ is for training fitness. If one has to go at the bottom of your gearing range, I would say let the cadence drop. And if you want to keep your HRZ on a monster descent, you may have to pedal faster. Just keep in mind HRZ training wasn't intended for huge climbs and descents. Those are very special situations during which ya just gotta do what ya gotta do to get by.

gregf83 

Sounds like you haven't got your HR zones sorted out. How are you defining zone 2/3? If you can comfortably ride in what you're calling zone 3 for 3+ hrs and do that multiple days in a row I don't really see a problem.

For structured training you should be looking at power levels, RPE or HR as a measure of your effort. Cadence is largely irrelevant. If your HR is going up significantly at the higher cadence it's likely your power is also up.

My advice would be to ignore cadence.

Dan333SP

It sounds like you're on a single speed or something if you can't keep your HR in a certain zone at a certain RPM. If holding 90 RPM in your absolute lowest gear on flat ground still pushes your HR into the upper zones, then maybe your pedal stroke needs to be worked on for smoothness? Are you bouncing around in your saddle at 90 rpm?

Drew Eckhardt 

Use your small ring. I usually don't use my big ring going slower than about 20 MPH.

In the unlikely event you actually needed to choose you'd pick zone.

The idea is to stay below your aerobic threshold (you should still be able to converse normally) so you train that system.

When you go harder your body starts to favor its lactate system so you don't develop a good aerobic base.

Completely worthless because one standard deviation is 12 bpm out. At two sigmas you're looking at a 48bpm range for maximum which could have you trying to exceed your maximum heart rate or hitting Z2 not Z5.

Still not good because lactate threshold varies as a fraction of your maximum. That assumes you were still accelerating up hill and actually reached your maximum.

That works when you pace it right. Your lactate threshold is approximately the average over the last 20 minutes.

HornedFrog

it's definitely a doable thing. your resistance is just too high so you'll have to just go slower. go in the lowest gear ya got at 90rpm on a flat and you'll be practically comatose. increase the resistance until you hit your HR target.

Seattle Forrest

You can't just say I rode up a hill and hit this HR, so it's my max, but if you've been keeping your data for a while and that's the highest heart rate you've ever seen, over lots of full effort riding, you can use it as your max.

HazeT

Thanks for all the replies. and answering some of the questions:

1: Right now my HR zones are based on the average rate of a 30 mins effort. Averaged 160HR, entered that into a calculator and came with the zones that I then updated into my garmin.

2: I guess flat and small ring are the keywords I went for a ride over the weekend where there as a 1800ft elevation over 12 miles, going slightly uphill but I tried to stay in the big ring the whole ride.

I did a 30 miles this morning and was able to keep my HR zone in the 2's, even though it was in the high end "2.8". I did had to drop to the small chain ring at some points in order to bring the HR down and maintain the cadence.

Thanks all.

HazeT

I haven't in any moment, stated that I can stay in zone 3 for 3+ hours. What i said was, if I try to keep my cadence over 90, my heart rate starts to drift into zone 3.

gregf83 

My mistake. You said over 2 hrs and I assumed you could keep going for 3+