OneLessFixie

My question is simply this: Is there any real scientific support for the familiar five heart rate zones? I remember reading somewhere that the whole thing was concocted by Polar in a bid to sell its heart rate monitors.

I'm asking because as we all know, there is so much bad information out there regarding health and fitness, and so many worthless scam products.

I'd be grateful if anyone could, for example, post links to articles in reputable scientific journals.

clemsongirl 

It was around before Polar and I don't know why anyone would think science has concluded that it was supposed to be an absolute guide to rule everyone’s training. Some of the studies that have contributed to the thought process and that are also frequently quoted are:

Karvonen, Kentala and Mustala. The effects of training on heart rate: a longitudinal study. Ann Med Exper Fenn 1957;35 (3)307-315

Inbar, Scheinowitz, Rotstein, Dlin and Casaburi. Normal cardiopulmonary responses during incremental exercise in 20-70-yr-old men. Med Sci Sport Exerc 1994 May

Robergs and Landwehr. The Surprising History of the “HRmax=220-age” Equation. Journal of Exercise Physiology 2002:Vol 5, Number 2.

And especially for women, Gulati. Heart Rate Response to Exercise Stress Testing in Asymptomatic Women. The St. James Women Take Heart Project, 2010

chasm54

I think this is an area where the theory is trying to catch up with the practice. Athletes have tended to train empirically - coaches have looked for what seemed to work, and based training programmes on experience. Sports scientists have then come along and tried to understand why what works, works.

The Rosbergs and Landwehr article, cited above, is interesting. All sorts of things, including stress testing in medical facilities, have been using the 220-age formula for years to predict max HR. But it is, as they pointed out, bunk - and wasn't really research-based in the first place. Then the cited study showing that RPE is superior to HR-based training in improving performance bases its HR training on the Karvonen method, which again appears to use 220-age to estimate max HR and calculate training zones. It is unsurprising that HR training comes out as relatively ineffective when the zones chosen are based on a proxy for max HR, rather than on some measurement of the individual subjects' actual performance.

But that doesn't mean that all the HR-based training zones are just bunk. It is possible to measure individuals lactate thresholds, VO2 max etc and plan their training against that, and it is no surprise that different levels of stress will produce different levels of adaptation. But they have to be your levels of stress, not those produced by some arbitrary formula.

Personally I approximated my LTHR by using the test described in the sticky at the top of this forum, and have calculated my training zones on that basis, using the percentages of LTHR suggested by Friel. He uses the five zone formula but breaks Z5 down into 3 sub-zones, 5a, 5b, 5c. When used to inform a structured training program, it seems to work, with the proviso that at the highest HRs perceived exertion becomes more and more important, and HR less so, because of the lag between one making the increased effort and one's CV system catching up. One of the most useful features of HR monitoring, for me, is to prevent me from going too hard on days that are supposed to be for recovery. When I am feeling good I can find that my perceived exertion is very low and end up doing too much.

So, I think a lot of the science may be dubious but that the HR zones nonetheless have value if properly used, in that they seem to work. Pragmatism rules...

Ryan.Han

I think that five-zone heart rate programs can be quite good if set up decently. I have a max heart rate of 209, resting about 42, and a lactate threshold around 186 according to my last test. Based on that, I have the following Coggan training zones:

Zone 1 (Active Recovery): - 126
Zone 2 (Endurance): 127 - 155
Zone 3 (Tempo): 156 - 175
Zone 4 (Threshold): 176 - 194
Zone 5 (VO2Max): 195 -

Based on my training, those heart rate zones equate eerily well to their descriptions. My training would be still better if I had power, but as a poor college student that's not yet in the cards.

My big question now is what to do for the month of June, given that I've been off my bike because of a lot of international traveling. June is literally completely open, with neither work nor school, and I want to take the best advantage of that as possible for the beginnings of 2014 base. I'm guessing it'll just be high-miles Zone 2 work.

Ryan.Han

Also, it seems that the forums here are far more sparse in terms of people curious about training than they are about their next clinchers, but another heart rate methodology that some people appreciate as a base training guideline is from Phil Maffetone. His method, championed by people like six-time Ironman champ Mark Allen, dictates that at least in base training an appropriate heart rate limit is 180-age, with a few modifiers that can push it up or down 5 beats per minute (injuries or long absences, for example, push it down 5 beats per minute).

For me that would mean that I should be aiming towards a max heart rate of 150 during base training periods, which sort of falls in line with the Coggan method above, is about 10BPM lower than the Karvonen zone based on my real max and resting HRs, and is around 12BPM lower than the endurance zone from Joe Friel based on my last tested lactate threshold.

I remember reading Phil Maffetone's book The Maffetone Method more than 10 years ago, and being impressed with the idea that keeping base training so pure and simple could help athletes become significantly faster. Apparently among athletes like Mark Allen and supposedly some ultra-marathoners, they will do 100% Maffetone training until they are no longer seeing performance improvements--sometimes from like November through March--and the claim is that such a long base period really helps set up the body for best possible improvements later on.

For anyone interested, here is a link to an article on his site where he explains the history, reasoning, and implementation of the 180-age formula:
https://www.philmaffetone.com/180formula.cfm

Ryan.Han

Because I'm also trying to put more information here, I'm also attaching a link to an Excel spreadsheet a user named Morbius (from another forum, I think) made years ago that will show calculations based on some of the afore-mentioned coaches or methods (Coggan, Friel, Karvonen), and also include calculations based on the British Cycling Federation and a few others. Some don't look helpful at all, but for the sake of completeness, they're there.

The link to the spreadsheet in my public Google Drive folder:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9TE...it?usp=sharing
Ctrl+S should allow it to be downloaded so it can be edited, and I'm also assuming it can just be imported into one's own Google Docs account as well for editing there.

chasm54

I wouldn't set too much store by the 180 minus age, it's just as likely as any other formula to be insensitive to individual variation. However, I am a big fan of putting in a lot of time at lowish intensities to build a big base. I do a lot of touring and I rarely feel as strong as I do after an extended period of 25-30 hour weeks at touring speeds.

However, a couple of things need to be said. The first is that placing Maffetone's emphasis on base training takes time, both in terms of planning ahead (it takes months) and lifestyle (many hours per week for cyclists, fewer if you're a runner). I'm fortunate enough to have that time, many people don't. And the second is that bike racing is, mostly very different from ultra-marathons in that it requires not just endurance but the ability to deal with repeated surges and recovery at speed.

Having said that, I have no doubt that the principle is sound and that putting in the time to build the huge base puts one in the best possible position to tolerate, and benefit from, the higher-intensity training later on.

Ryan.Han

Absolutely agree on everything you said. Obviously Phil Maffetone's 180-age formula doesn't take any personal factors (e.g., resting or max heart rates, lactate threshold) into account, so I have to imagine there could be ways to improve on it in terms of establishing a baseline for base training, but in terms of its simplicity, it seems like it still has its value.

For me, I'll be spending the next month doing really high volume, low intensity work, so that sort of base riding makes perfect sense. As I said above, factors related to travel as well as a ridiculous internship and not having my bike have meant that I only have ~500KM behind me this year. Because of that, I'm setting my sights more towards A rides of 2014, and enjoying a relaxing summer this year now that my internship is done and for one whole month I have no obligations whatsoever(!). It's going to be good.

The thing I find somewhat disappointing is that progress in heart-rate training seems to have slowed down as the top-level coaches and research seem to have shifted over to power. Power seems like the next great step, but it has a pretty steep barrier to entry. I guess the state of the art for heart rate training is to frequently establish rock-solid lactate threshold numbers and train as percentages of that. Or is there more data I'm missing?

chasm54

No, I don't think you're missing much. I bet you'll be interested in this, though. Most interesting, for me, is the similarity between the preferred training regimens of different types of endurance athletes - Kenyan runners, Norwegian cross-country skiers, Spanish cyclists - and that pro cyclists at the top level spend a similar (and very high) percentage of their time in Zones one and 2 during a stage race as they do when training. Plus there is a clear plateau after which adding more HIIT sessions per week confers no additional benefit, presumably because of the training stress incurred. And it is pretty clear from the article, isn't it, that the sports scientists are behind the experiential curve. That is, athletes and coaches have devised programs based on what seems to work, and then the physiologists come along and try to figure out why it works.

I agree that too little attention is now paid to HR training, and I too have not yet made the transition to power. I can see its advantages, and certainly HR becomes trickier to use when doing very high-intensity work, but so far I just haven't been sufficiently bothered to go to the trouble and expense. Also I think that the subjective element is important. If my HR is sticky for some reason, and I can't get it up much over LTHR, that is telling me something and I wouldn't want to slog on just to achieve the prescribed power output. I guess the ideal is to use power, HR and perceived exertion together and use the data each gives you in the light of experience. For my purposes, though, HR seems to work pretty well as long as I do a reasonably regular LTHR check. and most of the time I am using my HRM to make sure I keep my HR down. I don't see that a powermeter would offer any particular advantage in that scenario.

chasm54

You'll also be interested in this thread in the racer's forum, especially the linked articles. Some people are still thinking about the advantages of HR training.

Ryan.Han

Thanks for that link! I've heard of Ben Stone from Sigma before, but I wasn't aware that he had a blog there. For the link-lazy, here's a direct link to his article, Using Power or Heart Rate Vol 1:
https://www.sigmacoaching.com/using-p...rt-rate-vol-1/

It's interesting to me how he points out that heart rate and power effectively describe different things -- and how that's not a bad thing, contrary to what some might have you believe in terms of training with power. That heart rate is a good proxy for oxygen consumption is interesting to me, and I had never thought about the fact that something (i.e., anaerobic functions) has to make up for non-instantaneous heart rate change when effort abruptly ramps up.

I also found the other article you linked really interesting... The fact that top athletes from divergent locations in a variety of sports (running, cycling, rowing, etc) exercise overwhelmingly (80-90%) at low intensities (zones 1 and 2 in a standard five-zone system) doesn't surprise me, especially given the sheer volume of work they put in per year. But what I did find interesting was that there were several cases of athletes improving performance by more than 10% going from one year to the next by drastically changing their training from lower hours, higher-intensity HIIT style workouts to much higher volume, lower intensity work with some very high intensity work thrown in at the top -- the so-called "polar distribution" he mentioned, almost opposite of a bell curve, where the work is on either end of the spectrum, but not so much in the middle. And that there was some alignment with the Pareto Principle 80/20 split is also worth considering.

Do you have any resources about training that improves fat-burning abilities? The first post in the racing thread mentions that Ben Stone is a proponent of training one's ability to use fat, but I'm not sure where else to look on that topic. I'd tend to assume again that one trains that by working in the sort of base range all of this has been talking about, that tends to favor a higher percentage of fat burning anyway?

Carbonfiberboy 

Base Building for Cyclists by Thomas Chapple

chasm54

Carbonfiberboy has pointed you to Chapple. As I understand it, doing a lot of work in Zones 1 & 2, up to tempo pace but not beyond, will condition one to burn fat, and spare the glycogen, at intensities that slowly rise over time. Some advocate riding in the morning before breakfast, and starting to eat only an hour or so into the ride, in order to force the system to resort to fat from the start. Whether that actually makes any difference I couldn't say.