Hi,

I find that my heart rate takes a while to get up when im using the turbo, yet out on the road I dont have this issue, but 3 of my workouts a week are on the turbo so I want to check how I should judge intensity to make sure im doing it right.

So, tonight I did a 30min test to see how long it would take to get into zone 4 and hold it for a while. I started with a 15min warmup with some easy pedalling and a few short harder efforts, I was sweating and warmed up nicely by the end of the 15min, then 30min hard effort.

Here is the workout I did - https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v306/G888/30T.jpg

As you can see it takes about 15min of hard effort to get my heart rate into zone 4 once ive done the warmup and my average speed was 18mph, my legs were burning holding that speed for 30min so it was hard for me.

Do you get fitter / fast by riding faster than you normally ride (I average 15mph over 50 miles for example) or by holding a high heart rate (zone 4) for a period of time, such as 30min, or both?

I know a high heart rate goes hand in hand with higher speeds, obviously you have to work hard to get your heart rate up, but as you can see im working hard for 30min but my heart rate is only in zone 4 for 15min. So do I get 30min worth of gains (speed) or 15min's worth (heart rate)?

Don't try to base any indoor training on speed relative to outdoor speed. It just doesn't usually translate.

Let's say you have some pace at which you normally ride. You get fitter and stronger by riding both much harder than that pace and much easier than that pace (to recover). You don't get much faster by riding at your normal pace, though that does give you more endurance. So you need all three things: Hard, normal, easy. It's going much harder than normal that makes you faster, but then you need to recover from those efforts.

Like umd says, ignore the trainer speed, except that I watch my trainer speed at a particular heart rate to see if I'm getting faster over time, and during a workout to see if I'm getting cooked and slowing down while maintaining the target HR. But don't compare trainer speed to road speed.

Almost everyone has more trouble getting their HR up on a trainer compared with on the road. In fact, I think my HR zones shift down on the trainer a bit. It's because the trainer doesn't excite you and the road does. Excitement gets your HR up. I can vary my HR at the same trainer speed by 10 beats, just depending on what I think about.

So you did one 30 minute LT or sub-threshold interval. You should do at least two of those, with 10-15 minutes recovery between them. That helps your body learn to recover while still pedaling. But 30 minutes is a little long. I rather like 3-4 15 minute intervals instead of one or two long ones. They seem more doable on the trainer. Others like two 20 minute intervals. You'll find that your HR will come up a lot faster in the second and successive intervals, maybe only 3 minutes instead of 15.

I think you get the 30 minutes. That's the reason people train with power now instead of HR, so they can more accurately judge the quantity of their effort. But a power meter isn't cheap, so it has to be pretty important to you.

You can also do shorter even harder intervals. 3-4 minutes is a nice, painful period of time. Do about 4 of those.

Post later...

umd???...

You love taking things out of context. Speed on a trainer means nothing.

If you were an honest person, you would have posted what I actually quoted:

You failed because you don't need the bike to move forward to do work.

Cheers for the info. I know the speed on a turbo is different to the road, I was just providing my road speed so you have a rough idea of my fitness levels, not great but im trying

I do a mix of intervals, both short hard ones of 4 min such as 5 x 4min, and multiple ones of 15min or so to work on threshold, such as 3 or 4 x 15min.

Ive read alot on these forums and info provided from people such as umd on threshold intervals and it does seem to be working but ive always had this niggling doubt about my hr taking ages to get up to the correct zone and wondering if im working out correctly.

All the coaches etc say you should be in this hr zone or that hr zone when training, and I can get into any zone quickly on the road but if, for example I was doing 3 x 15min threshold intervals as soon as ive done my warmup I would pedal at a speed I know I can hold on the turbo for 30min, such as 18mph then add 1 or 2mph, so intervals would be done at say 20mph, rest at say 10mph, then hold 20mph etc, kind of power training but using speed as an approximate for power, but my hr wont be in zone 4 until the last interval although my PE rating for each interval is high.

I guess as you say the excitment of riding on the road is a factor, but ive given up trying to work out why its different. I now have a set of zones for the road and some lower ones for the turbo as doing a LTHR test on the road gives me 180bpm on the turbo gives me 170bpm, also I didnt realise alot of people have issues with getting their hr up. I hear alot of people saying they get too hot and the hr goes too high as the body tries to cool itself, so they use big fans to help, I tried using fans and not using fans and its made no difference! LOL

Yes, power is the best tool for this, just wish I had the money for one....

Just remember that HR is an affect, not a cause.

Sick, you have an axe to grind with me and it is not relevant to this thread, go away. You are a dishonest person who is continuing to misquote my responses to you.

Agreed. Please keep this on topic and refrain the personal attacks and misrepresentation. I cleaned this up a tad.

Thank you

Siu Blue Wind
Forum Admin

don't worry about how long your HR takes to ramp up. Only pay attention when it isn't doing what it normally does. there are days my HR responds really quickly because I am still cooked from my last ride and I'm not recovered, so just because your heart rate goes up quick one day might not even indicate a good thing

you get faster by riding faster, that's for sure, but don't think about it as being faster for the entire ride. Be faster for a short stretch. We used to call them "jumps". Its like intervals, but not as strict or structured.

When I was training for time trials, I would try and get faster by riding really fast for a mile or so, not by trying to ride the entire 40k distance faster

And make sure to do some LT time like umd says. This doesn't even have to be very structured. just make sure you are hurting somewhere on the route if you have a hard time with doing formal intervals

in the end, speed hurts, so just how fast do you really want to go?

Did you try a big fan? 24" box fan positioned about 6' in front of the rider, at chest level. Wind from fan should be strong enough that you need to wear glasses. Even in cool weather, 50° in my shop, I take off my top and turn on the fan if I'm working hard.

No, its was just a desk fan, probably 15" and it was positioned in front of me about 6ft away, these days I dont bother with a fan...

If you are working out hard in an enclosed space and don't cool yourself off it will be much more difficult to really push yourself. A small desk fan is not going to make much difference, a huge box fan does.

Ive not really looked into it to be honest, I will see if I can get hold of a bigger one and see how it goes....

I can't really see how a fan would make one workout harder. There is a dehydration factor, but not with a 4 liter bottle of water by your side.

Good, loud music is my suggestion, none of the pu$$y stuff neither.

Forget the fan, download Limewire, download these & burn them to a CD.

Drowning Pool - Bodies
Hollywood Undead - Undead
Go Hard Go Home - Roy Jones Jr
Adema - Giving in
P.O.D - Alive
P.O.D - Youth Of The Nation
Kottonmouth Kings - Don't Give a F*cK
Disturbed - Get Psycho
Disturbed - Indestructible
Rage Against the Machine - Guerilla Radio
Rage Against the Machine - Sleep Now In The Fire
Slipknot - Psychosocial
Slipknot - Wait and Bleed
Metallica - Enter Sandman
Metallica - Sad But True
Metallica - The Memory Remains

And, plenty of Metallica live.

Lance listens to the same.

You can have an industrial type fan, but that will be rendered useless after listening to that CD while on the trainer.

The fan doesn't make the workout harder. It makes riding on a trainer suck less. For many people, that helps them to be able to push harder.

Heart rate is a feedback regarding heart stress. I'm not sure what you think - do you think your heart tells you how hard to work?

Well put. Exactly why i've started ignoring HR indoors and just use wattage/speed to gauge the effort. Your heart is like any other muscle, it can get fatigued and tired. After high training workload, you may find your HR at a completely different BPM for a given workload. Mine tends to vary quite a lot depending on how rested/recovered I am.