training zones

I have a question regarding heart rate zones. Since I don't yet have a power meter I have to use heart rate to estimate my LT. My question is that I have read many different ways to estimate it. Carmicheal has you do two 3 mile all out time trials(about 8 minutes) and take your highest average. He then uses this to determine othr zones. Friel and Coggan seem to use longer tests(30 minutes for Friel and a 40k TT for Coggan) It seems that my HR will be alot higher on the shorter tests and I worry about training too hard. On the other hand, the ranges suggested by Friel and Coggan can be nearly 20 BPM broad and this sometimes seems too easy when I do Tempo. So any advice on setting zones based on HR(I know its inferior to power but I'm poor)would be greatly appreciated.

You can also base them on HRmax, as we do (for non power riders) and as British Cycling does.

Even though you reach a higher HR, the zones are set lower. You may also need to use the training prescription of the people's whose zones you follow (e.g., zone 3 in one terminology will possibly be different to zone 3 in someone else's terminology).

Our HR zones, can be seen http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=powerstern

ric

__________________
http://www.cyclecoach.com

Regardless of which method you use, you need to use the zones that are designed to go with that method. Personally, I'd *first* choose a program (zones, plan, etc.) that I liked best and then determine my reference HR using the method described by that program.

Friel's do have a wide range. I have been following Friel for two years now: last year with just a HR monitor and this year with a psuedo-power meter (a trainer with somewhat constant resistance so that speed can be used as a proxy for power). I have found that for the longer rides (anything over 45 minutes) in order to maintain the same power my HR goes up. Whereas I used to also think some of those ranges were quite wide, I now realize that in order to maintain a consistent average power output during the workout my HR will start out closer to the low part of the range and climb towards the high end of the range at the end of the workout. This is particularly true for Friel's E2 (endurance) and M1 (tempo) workouts.