IronHorseRiderX

I'm new to cycling (39yo, 158lbs, 6 feet), started about a year ago and so far rode around 3,5K miles total.

After I got Garming and signed for Strava my strava-estimated max HR was 188 and it sounded accurate, I never saw anything close to that number during my early rides.

I'm mostly doing climbing and here's my typical ride Bike Ride Profile | . Diablo #37. No wind! near Danville | Times and Records | Strava - if you ignore initial spike (known issue with many HRM) most of the climb done in Z4 with avg HR of 177 and max HR 183. And according to strava calculation I spend 1h 3mins in Z4 (163 - 181 bpm) which sounds about right to me.

About three weeks ago I did my first group ride Bike Ride Profile | . My very first group ride - Tuesday Worlds. Somehow managed to stay with the group on the way to the summit but was not able to descend nearly as quickly and had to pedal back alone near Pleasanton | Times and Records | Strava
That was rather thought.
The puzzling part is that according to strava I spent 13mins in Z5 (Anaerobic > 181 bpm) and my max HR was 192. Essentially I rode last climb in Z5 entirely.
I thought this must be a glitch as I read previously that Z5 is mostly for short sprints.

But since that ride I started routinely hitting Z5 for 10+ mins periods:
Bike Ride Profile | 5/1/14 Pleasanton, CA. Palomares. Hit South side hard but *nothing* left for North side near Pleasanton | Times and Records | Strava 15min in Z5 with max HR 192 - that was my standard practice ride with one cat 2 and cat 3 climbs
Bike Ride Profile | . Tuesday Worlds. Hot. near Pleasanton | Times and Records | Strava 24min in Z5 with max HR 194 - another group ride
Bike Ride Profile | . Palomares. Replaced worn out rear P-R3 with approx 1K mi @ 2300 mi with P-SL1. near Pleasanton | Times and Records | Strava

I'm not quite sure how interpret that - it appears that strava-estimated max HR of 188 is incorrect and I should change it to 192/194?

It bothers me that I'm spending so much time with in high bpm (Z5?) zone.

Several articles suggests that it is not very healthy thing to do.

Should I avoid this in the future?

Initially I thought this is related to the group rides only where I had to pedal very hard just to keep up but now same happens during short climbs (~20mins) at max effort which is quite puzzling to me.
Another thing - same climbs in Z5 vs Z4 resulted only to very small time difference (~10..20 sec over 20min climb)
Example Strava Segment | Palomares Climb South :
- Avg HR 182bpm, time 20:57 - best Z5 (my most recent ride overral)
- Avg HR 175bpm, time 21:08 - best Z4 time (with ~2min of Z5 at the very end of the climb)

Extra 7bpm resulted in only 10 sec improvement (which may not be the best way way to measure actual performance but I do not have power meter so).
Does not sounds right to me.

Carbonfiberboy 

IME in the upper ranges HR can rise faster than power. Training more at the upper end will improve power there.

The best advice is to pretty much ignore maximum HR (MRH). There's a sticky at the top of this forum than shows how to find lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR). You have the conditioning now to do that test successfully. Base your zones off LTHR rather than MHR. If you want a MHR number, my rule of thumb is to divide LTHR by .9. That will be close. It is not surprising that Strava was incorrect, in fact it is expected.

No, it's not a bad thing to ride hard, quite the contrary.

Your descending skills will improve with practice. Tall skinny people don't descend as fast as short heavy people. However you can get pretty good by working on your aero position. You want your back horizontal, your pedals level, knees gripping the top tube, chin 2" off the stem, elbows tucked under your belly, weight mostly in your pedals, hardly touching the saddle or even being a little off it.

NealH

In addition, formulas for max HR are only estimates and they generally are low estimates. It will take a performance lab or, a competitive situation to find your max HR. If your arms are not tingling and you're starting to collapse, then you have not found your max HR. I'm 63 and when riding with the local elite group, I will hit 193 on occasion. Its usually just before I get dropped on a hill. But I give it all I have. I don't get hot, bothered and winded and start backing off. I try to hold on.

Once you know your true max rate, then you can reset up your zones. Many university athletic departments have a lab and it runs about $200 for testing. Not a lot of money and you'll find out your VO2, threshold power and max HR. They ensure you're warmed up and its a controlled environment. If you're worried about running your heart to the max then you can ask your doctor if its Ok. When you're my age its probably a good idea. If you have latent heart defects then you can have trouble before hitting the max rate. But I rarely hear of anyone having problems on a bike. Running is harder on the heart than cycling in general.

IronHorseRiderX

Carbonfiberboy,

Thank you very much for response.

I did try that test recently (2 weeks ago), in fact my regular mid-week ride is almost perfect for that test as it includes two ~20min climbs:
Strava Segment | Palomares Climb South
Strava Segment | Palomares Road from Niles Canyon (Low-Key Hillclimbs)

Here's that ride Bike Ride Profile | . Palomares. Replaced worn out rear P-R3 with approx 1K mi @ 2300 mi with P-SL1. near Pleasanton | Times and Records | Strava my max HR on both climbs peaked at 188 (with avg 177) and on both climbs last ~5min were in spent Z5 (Z5 is strava estimate as > 181).

Does that mean that my max HR is 209?

Sounds quite high to me but makes sense looking at the data above.

The only difference from method described here https://www.bikeforums.net/training-n...hold-test.html is that I did not had "full rest" before doing it, may be at 95% (best guess).
And the fact I had about 13 mins rest between 1st and 2nd climbs - not 5 mins as suggest, not sure how big of the difference it would make.

So should I actually try to tap into 180 range (rather 170 as before) more often and hopefully on a longer (> 20min) climbs?
How often this can be done?

As of now I'm trying to do following rides weekly:
- group ride which at/close to my max abilities at the beginning of the week Bike Ride Profile | . Tuesday Worlds. Hot. near Pleasanton | Times and Records | Strava
- mostly climbing ride midweek (~33 miles with two ~5miles 3 to 4% climbs , total elevation for that ride is 3K ft) with some easy Z2 warm-up / cool-down riding Bike Ride Profile | 5/1/14 Pleasanton, CA. Palomares. Hit South side hard but *nothing* left for North side near Pleasanton | Times and Records | Strava
- weekend climb where I go as hard as I could at Strava Segment | Athenian School (South Gate) to summit W/O the piddle paddle in the parking lot at the top!!! , I warm-up for about 7 miles before that climb and after.
Which is about 6h of riding weekly with around 100mi and 9K ft of elevation.

My goal is to get under 1h at Strava Segment | Athenian School (South Gate) to summit W/O the piddle paddle in the parking lot at the top!!! before October.
I've started training for this goal about 5 months ago and initially had pretty decent progress but during last month it trickled down from 1-2 minutes ride-to-ride improvements to some 10-20 seconds.
It got very consistent around 1:03 mark thou, which tells me that I probably reached my current max.
Still I never tried to push my bpm beyond 177, mostly because I was not aware that I can actually sustain higher bpm for long.

IronHorseRiderX

I recall seeing VO2 max test ads and also found SF State News which is not far from me.

I had some heart tests done awhile ago (like 6 or so years ago) and had MRI done recently (before surgery) - do not recall any issues on both.
Still it freaks me out a bit
Let's say if I decide to ask my doctor for more tests what would be my arguments?
I have Kaiser HMO btw.

IronHorseRiderX

Oh yeah - descending is a sore spot for me.
Not just speed but the whole thing, I do not really try hard to descend as fast as I (possible) can.
Instead I rather pace myself as I simply do not feel safe taking turns fast or just riding downhills at speed >35mph.
My guess it is combination of fear of falling and poor cornering / bike handling skills.
Working on improving both but it is hardly noticeable.

Carbonfiberboy 

Your results are very consistent. The PR says you were going hard. I think you should use 178 for your LTHR. Here's a good calculator for training zones:
Determining Your Heart Rate Training Zones
As you can see, I put in 50 for your resting HR, which you can correct. This calculator, like so many, bases zones of MHR. It thinks that for a LTHR of 178, your MHR would be ~198, which seems reasonable from your experience.

I don't think the 13 minutes rest vs. 5 minutes it at all important. The specifics of that sticky are questionable: warmup is much too short, time to reach LTHR for second effort also much too short. Instructions like those frequently cause people to blow the test by going way too hard at the start, loading up with lactate, and having a poor test. You seem to have a good feel for that. Long climbs will do that for you.

Your watts are good, your VAM is good. If we assume that the Strava power calculations for long climbs are fairly accurate, you put out about 3.5 watts/kg, which is very good indeed:
How To Interpret Power Data And What To Do With It - USA Cycling

To improve from here, you need a training program that will increase your LT power. You already have the endurance so you need more high end work. Here's the BF workout book:
https://www.bikeforums.net/33-road-bi...cipe-book.html
You'll notice that everything is given in power rather than in heart rate. You can sort of convert to HR, but not really. If you want to get serious, a power meter is in your future:
How to Increase Your Threshold Power

You should probably buy Friel's Cyclists Training Bible and get down with the principles of periodized training.

Carbonfiberboy 

You can google "bicycle cornering skills".

Descending straight, the position I described is important, especially gripping the top tube with your knees and putting most of your weight in the pedals. Cornering, you want your weight in the outside (down) pedal. Practice is what helps, especially on group rides. If the guy in front of you is upright and you follow his line and speed, you will be too. Most folks don't corner anywhere near the limits of adhesion.

Fear will gradually decrease with experience. Just keep slowly pushing your fear limiter. Rollers are good for generally improving bike handling.

CharlyAlfaRomeo

You should be able to sustain high BPM for quite some time the problem is that above your LTHR power will begin to decrease the longer you stay above LTHR.

This is one of the main reasons cyclists prefer to train with power.

ModeratedUser150120149

The usefulness of max heart rate, in my opinion, greatly over sold except for a tiny number of elite competitors. For most individuals the number varies significantly due to a variety of reasons.

A much more useful tool is the old Runners Breathing Symptom. Roughly; the more difficult it is to breathe the harder you are working. In this method the ideal work level is just at the point normal conversation is possible without gasping. The exception is interval training when brief periods of anaerobic work is useful. During that time, of course you are going to be struggling, successfully, for air.

Hermes

When I restarted cycling in 2006, it did not take much effort to get a high heart rate and it would stay high and decay slowly after I stopped. Fast forward to today, it is extremely difficult for me to raise my heart rate and it plunges as soon as I stop. I have a significant lag in my heart rate going from z2 power to z5 or VO2Max power and it may take a couple of hard VO2Max intervals before I get to VO2 max heart rate.

I am not surprised that a relatively new cyclist would see high sustained heart rates climbing. What I suggest is looking at the HR recovery time and see if the heart rate can recover to below 120 bpm within 2 minutes. If the HR stays up, then the work being done may be too difficult for the level of training or there is too much fatigue.

When I work out at the gym (I have been doing this for a long time), I use my ATP-PC and anaerobic lactate system to generate power to lift the weights. I do not wear a heart rate monitor while lifting but I am sure that my HR increases during the period that I lift. Why not? I am focused on the number of repetitions and the amount of weight being lifted. HR would at best be a tertiary metric that would have little significance but may vary greatly depending on whether I am hydrated, the ambient temperature and etc.

One could say the same thing about short duration high intensity efforts on the bicycle. One uses the ATP-PC and lactate systems to generate power just like the weight room.

IMO, level of effort over time is more important for short duration efforts than heart rate both in the weight room and on the bicycle. Effort over time is power so the best way to measure effort over time on a bicycle is with a power meter or use a stopwatch over a fixed distance. Shorter time over the same distance means more power.

IronHorseRiderX

Carbonfiberboy,

Thank you for the links - will try to read and digest.
So far I had no particular training plan (besides just climb as much and as hard as I can) so all that info is quite new to me.
I'm planning to get power meter but not until end of this year so will have to relay on strava estimates for now.

When you say "rollers are good for generally improving bike handling" - what do you mean?

IronHorseRiderX

I do understand LTHR concept and it does makes practical sense to me.
On my most intense ~1h 11mi 6% elevation climb which I do once a week avg HR would normally be around 176 to 178 bpm, very consistent.
If I push to hard on first half (>176) than on second half of the climb HR slowly drifts to sub 160 range and after that it is over (climb time would be so-so, no PRs on that ride with exception of first half of course).
It seems to me that the trick is to keep it in that 17x range - if I understand it correctly.

IronHorseRiderX

Today it took about 4 mins for my HR to go from 188 to 126 , Bike Ride Profile | 5/3/14 Danville, CA. Diablo #38 with the wind at my back! I predict lot's of PR on Strava today near Danville | Times and Records | Strava
188 is right after I reach the summit and climb final pretty steep segment Strava Segment | The Wall
It does not look that my HR drops below 125 when I'm riding.
Same 4mins here from 192 to 128 Bike Ride Profile | 5/1/14 Pleasanton, CA. Palomares. Hit South side hard but *nothing* left for North side near Pleasanton | Times and Records | Strava
Is that OK or too much?

I used to do mild weight lifting, 2 or 3 times a week for approx 45mins for several years.
Last 3 or so years it was quite consistent as I only did benchpress, pullups (weighted mostly) and deadlift (threw all the other stuff out as one of my friends suggested).
After I start riding more I no longer have time to go to gym and only do pullups and pushups once a week at home.
It is clear to me that my endurance went up quite a bit and I can recover much faster after pullups, strength is not there but that is another story.

CharlyAlfaRomeo

Are you hammering these climbs every week? If so it's no wonder you've plateaued, you'll likely start to see negative gains soon. If you want to hit the goal you mentioned either get a coach or read something like Friel's Training Bible and start training smarter.

hamster

In one of the activities in the first post, I see 15 minutes with avg HR 184 and 5 minutes with avg HR 188.

This would strongly suggest to me that max HR is not 188 and not even 192 but maybe something close to 200. You have a very well developed LTHR from all the weekly Z4 climbs, but still, 15 min @ HR 184 would mean that LTHR is somewhere around that value, and a LTHR of 96% of HRmax (or even 93%, corresponding to Carbonfiberboy's suggestion of 178) is improbable.

I have HRmax of 192 and I have a total of 35 min. at 184 or above (and 5 min. at 188 or above) logged since Christmas, added up across all rides.

Try some sprint intervals. Warm up, get HR above 160 (without going anaerobic - may be tricky without a power meter, but you can do it) and do a sprint to exhaustion. Repeat a couple of times. See what heart rate numbers you come up with.

For zone definition purposes, you care more about LTHR than about HRmax. HRmax-based zones are just shortcuts for those unable or unwilling to figure out their LTHR.

valygrl

I used to live in WAlnut Creek and do those rides, I miss them.

Who are you riding with ? The Diablo Cyclists used to be a good, uh, mature group.

hamster

I was wrong. I did not spend 35 minutes at 184+ - I had another person's activity imported into Golden Cheetah and it was skewing the results. I only have about 5 minutes at HR 184+ logged this year (however, I do not always wear a heart rate monitor.)

After some poking, I figured out how to get Golden Cheetah to produce a heart rate curve (HR value vs. longest period of time this HR was maintained):



High HR values are tricky to achieve. In my case, even a 2 minute all-out sprint would have me top out at 182-184 unless I start very warm (with initial HR above 150). A shorter sprint can end even sooner. The sprint that resulted in my best 30 second power this year ended with HR 171.

ModeratedUser150120149

Yes indeed. Taking electrical measurements from the heart and correctly interpreting them is more an art than a science, even for professionals who are highly trained and do it on a daily basis. For the layman it is a daunting task. Most end up chasing numbers.

The two things that are imprtant are how hard your body thinks it is working (breathing test) and recovery time.

Looigi

Electrical measurements from the heart, in this case, is simply heart rate. How is this more difficult to interpret or less of an indication of physiological effort than breathing rate/volume? They are links in the same chain. Respiration exchanges gasses in/out of the blood and blood flow moves those gasses to where they're needed.

ModeratedUser150120149

Because it isn't that simple. There is a lot more in the work effort than just heart rate. Stroke volume is a factor. Air quality where you are exercsing is a factor, how the body is nourshed at that time is a factor, and so on. All of those are most simply boiled down to breathing. That is the simplest, most direct and most reliable indicator of how hard the body is working.

Metrics like power merely tell whether that work is enough for the task at hand.

Carbonfiberboy 

Rollers, meaning something like these:
https://www.sportcrafters.com/produc...ve-pro-rollers
Elite Arion Mag Rollers - Bike Rollers

Trad rollers don't have resistance, but it's totally worth the money to get a set with. Rollers make you smooth and accurate on the bike.

Hermes

OP, I looked at a couple of your Strava posts and it appeared that the ambient temperature was in the 90s when you were riding. High ambient temperature raises my HR which is due to the added requirement to reject heat into high ambient. I would have no idea what your specific recovery heart rate is but there is also the rate of change. IMO, heart rate is a fair to good metric for threshold efforts and below and of little value for z5, z6 and z7.

Hermes

This is a general statement but most cyclist's breathing technique is poor. For example, they hold their breath on hard efforts. We see this all the time at the track during standing starts as one tries to put in max power. We scream from the sideline - breathe.

I cannot control my HR but I can control my breathing. I can increase or decrease the breathing rate and focus it according to a protocol.

IronHorseRiderX

Tuesday (fast group ride) and Saturday (1h climb ride) I go as hard as I can - on a group ride I have no choice anyway, midweek ride is where I often go easy.
It seems that I can recover OK from that kind of training, may be not to 100% but I would say after two days off (Saturday and Monday) I'm at around 90-95%
All rides approx. 33mile ~2h which is around 100mi/week, not that much really.
I used to do more climbing on the weekend (like 55mi ride with 8000ft elevation total) but it was just too much.

Bought Friel's Training Bible last night, hopefully will learn something