Cadence vs Heartrate

I read some where that to work on endurance you want your heartrate to be between 50 - 70% (for me thats 96 - 140bpm) fine so I was doing that. Obviously that creeps up over the hills but by the by I'd keep my average in the 130's.

My uncle has recently got into cycling, just like myself (last couple of months) and says your cadence should be up around the 90's. I have no way to measure this other than a comparison to those bikes in the gym but think that I tend to keep mine between 60 - 70 rpm.

The problem that I'm having is if I raise my cadence even though I drop the gears my heartrate goes above the range that I want it to. So where's the happy medium here or isnt there one? Do i sacrifice one aspect for the other? Or have I missed the gist of this completly?

Thank you!

 

As you train and improve your endurance and develop your "bike legs" your heart will not increase so rapidly. I am 225 and though I lift weights am still about 20% body fat. So not in any good shape at all really. Nevertheless I can ride 20 miles at 18-19mph and maintain a 130-140 hr throughout while spinning at 90-100. Like you when I first started I stayed in higher gears and a lower candence because although it was harder on my legs I wasnt as out of breath. My best advice is to get a computer with a cadence meter and just start spinning.

 

There's no need to limit your HR to that range in order to be improving your endurance, and also no need to ride at a specific cadence. It can take new riders a while to feel comfortable at 90+ rpm cadence, and even then only if they're using clipless pedals or toe-clips, so just try to ride comfortably and see how things develop.

The HR target should be related to the duration of your workout. Obviously, longer rides can be slower, while shorter rides should be harder to still provide some benefit. What kind of riding are you doing? 50-70% of Max HR sounds like pretty light work unless you're riding very long rides. How's your breathing at that intensity?

 

I tend to ride about 18 miles ish at high 130's for my pulse and do that in just under an hour a few times a week. Although I cycled 51 miles the other week but kept the same pace (eg heart rate and average mph). does that help?

 

Sorry breathing is comfortably harder I suppose I would say obviously gets a lot quicker up the hills but generally comfortably harder.

 

As I mentioned, there's no reason you have to stay between 50-70% for optimal endurance benefit. In fact, for workouts less than 1hr, I think you'll see more benefit by upping the pace quite a bit or even doing some intervals. Search the forum for threads on interval workouts for more info and discussion.

 

You are probably young but you still want to do some of your workouts at a much higher heart rate if you want to improve and get faster and stronger. For short rides of 18 miles, you should be pushing a faster heart rate of at least 75 to 85%+. Incorporate speed work in those short workouts. For longer rides like 50+, you should be fine at 65 to 80% for hours. Give it a shot this weekend. Eventually your heart rate will decrease with the harder workouts as you get in better condition.