eandmwilson

I rode my trainer for 54 minutes yesterday--9 min warmup, 37 min at a constant load/cadence, and 8min cool down.

According to my "max" HR, I was at 95% of my max for the better part of the 37 minutes. I know max HR is kind of useless, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I did.For example:

1. Talking was possible, but I was breathing fairly heavy.
2. While I maintained the same workload/cadence the whole time, it was not super comfortable, and I was glad to have to stop at the 37 minute point (had to go to work).
3. For the rest of yesterday, walking down stairs in particular my legs felt a bit stiff.
4. I feel fine today, and am tempted to jump on the trainer again.

So, what was that I did? Some sort of aerobic work based on the length of time, obviously, but what does the mild stiffness (especially walking down stairs) signify?

And, what should a next day workout look like after a day like that?

DrPete 

If you were at 95% of your max for 37 minutes, you're either a complete bad-a$$ with a very high lactate threshold or your max HR is wrong.

When it comes to deciding training zones for HR, the more useful number is your lactate threshold hart rate, or LTHR. One way to measure it is to do a 30-minute TT effort, i.e. as hard as you can, and take the average HR for the last 20 minutes of the effort. Or you could do 2 8-minute TT efforts separated by a 10 minute recovery and take the highest average HR of the two efforts.

Once you know that number, you can calculate the right zones.

I'd probably just do an easy spin today, though. It'll help work some of that stiffness out.

asgelle

It sounds like you pretty much pegged your functional threshold. There's good correlation of functional threshold with ventilatory threshold, when breathing starts to become deep and labored. Also, your description of perceived exertion - not comfortable, able to go longer but glad to stop, matches up with FT, also. You don't say how max HR was determined, but at this point you shouldn't put much weight in it; use the HR from this workout as indicative of threshold heart rate. As to the workout, I'd describe it as a strong threshold workout - 37 minutes at threshold, which should improve aerobic fitness and help raise threshold power. The stress from the workout should not be so great that you couldn't train productively the next day though you might feel some fatigue. I don't like using how someone feels before a workout to decide how hard to train. I much prefer a performance based measure such as can the workout be completed or is it much more difficult than usual to perform the workout to decide if workouts should be shortened or dropped altogether.

merlinextraligh

And even if it was option 1, An incredibly elite athlete with a very high lactate threshold could ride at 95% of their true max HR for 30 minutes plus, but not and still talk and breath only fairly heavy.

95% of max for an extended period would be an all out effort for anyone.

eandmwilson

I was figuring the maxHR (figured by the highly suspect Polar HRM method) was off. Guess I need to suck it up and do an LT test so I can do this smarter.

Thanks for the responses--exactly what I was looking for.