Originally Posted by
TripletakeTTT
Hi new rider here. I'm male, 47yo, 5'10", 240 lbs and have been riding my bike for the last 4 months after not really riding for years.
I'm averaging about 60-75 mi per week. I use a HRM when I ride and have question. Looking at the zones over my last 20 mi ride I see that I was in Zone 4 - Zone 5 for about 90% of the ride. There is no dizziness or anything while riding. I experience burning in my legs from trying to keep my cadence up.
I guess I'm looking for info on whether I'm pushing myself to hard? Thanks.
Two possibiities:
- Your zones are incorrect
- You're reading it wrong.
I'm thinking you're probably in z3 ("burning legs"). I'd recommend doing an actual test to more accurately determine your zones. In z4, you'd be breathing really hard and unable to converse well (z5 not at all). That said, assuming you're in z3, yes, it sounds like you are pushing yourself too hard, too often.
To be simplistic: Zone 3 is sort of a no man's land that's somewhat useless in training. The adage is, "Go
really hard when you're supposed to go hard, and go
really easy when you're supposed to go easy." Right now, you're going middle of the road. It's not training your top-end at all. And then, when you try to train top-end, you're too tired from all that z3 work to get to your top-end. When you go easy, you should be z1 (occasionally z2) & that's it.
Depending on how you define it, zone 4 is when you crossover your lactate threshold, meaning the level at which lactate starts accumulating as your body can't get rid of it as fast as it is produced. (Some define it as anaerobic threshold, but this can be artificially low.) You're close to working anaerobically (if not actually are) and can only sustain z4 for short durations (couple minutes).
To determine z4, find a flat-to-gradual-2%-hill (no downhills!), one that will take you ~25 mins to complete at a good clip. Warmup. Ride the course as fast as you can sustain for the entire 20-mins. Then, over the last 1/4-mile, go all out and go as fast as you can. Really max yourself out so you can barely dismount the bike.
Take your average HR from the last 20-mins of the ride. This HRavg will be your threshold (z4). From this, you can then accurately compute zones 1--3. Zone 5 will be 1-2 bpm higher than your HRmax at the end of the test.
Good luck.