Heart Rate......? Fitness Level?



Kg4fxg

New Member
Sep 20, 2010
15
0
0
This seems odd....

I am doing a Spinervals workout and my cadence is very similar to those on the DVD. My heart rate is usually in the 140's and I really have to move say fast Cadence 130 plus to get my heart rate to 150's (mid). Many on the DVD's have a much higher heart rate.

Then the is a portion of the video that has you soft peddle to bring your heart rate down, I do this and my heart rate drops to 120's. And pretty quickly.

Some days I will do two sets of Spinerval DVD's, one at 2:45PM my lunch break at the gym and another around 7PM at home. Today was my rest day so I just did the running on the cross trainer or what some call the elliptical at the gym for 40 minutes and burned something like 510 calories. Basically running non stop.

I don't have a power meter, do most training at gym or at home on trainer. How do I know what kind of shape I am in? How do you know when you are ready for a group ride? Can heart rate indicate if you are in shape?

I thought if you were a couch potato any exercise would raise your heart rate to 180 plus and cardiac drift might keep it rising after that flight of stairs. And because you are out of shape it takes a long time to come back down.

Mine seems to be just the opposite.

I love to do the Spinervals DVD and Spinervals Iron Girl ones. I have no issue with Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced workouts.

How do you measure your fitness level?

Trek 7.9FX
Garmin 705 with Heart Rate

Bill
 
Maybe try increasing the load/resistance on your trainer or exercise bike?
 
Originally Posted by Kg4fxg .
How do you measure your fitness level?...
Heart rate can't give you an objective measure of fitness that can be compared to others. It can be useful for tracking your own workout quality and rate of recovery tells you something about fitness but not in a way that allows you to compare yourself to others.

The best way to find out if you're ready for a group ride or race is to go out and do a group ride or race. Worst case you get dropped and get some good solo training on the way back home. Realistically that can even happen if you've got the fitness but lack the pack riding skills in which case you still want to go out and develop those skills.

Power is your best bet for objectively measuring fitness especially if you express it in weight scaled watts per kilogram. Many gym bikes display power, they're typically not real accurate but can give you a rough idea of whether you're sustaining 100 watts for a steady twenty minute interval or something closer to 300 watts. You can also estimate power by timing yourself while climbing a steady moderate to steep hill of known elevation gain and distance. Plug the results along with your weight into a power to speed calculator like this one: http://www.analyticcycling.com/ForcesPower_Page.html (set frontal area to .6 or .7 for sitting up on a road bike and set rolling resistance to .006 or .007 for typical butyl tube clinchers on asphalt roads).

If you know your sustainable power for durations as short as 5 or perhaps 20 to 30 minutes you can see where you fall between beginning cyclists and world class record holders in a watts per kilogram sense here: http://www.flammerouge.je/content/3_factsheets/constant/wattkilobench.htm

You can also just go out and ride some sustained efforts in a variety of wind conditions and see what kind of speeds you hold. That's a hard one to translate directly to power as aerodynamics and wind play such a big part but you can quickly figure out if you're holding speeds anywhere near what you might need for the group you're considering riding with. Ask around and folks will generally tell you what kind of speeds they typically hold on a recreational or more serious group ride. If you're cruising at 20+ mph a lot on the flats then you should have plenty of options in group rides, if you're struggling at 14 mph alone without a big headwind then you'll probably want to look for a group with a recreational focus that advertises more social riding.


-Dave
 
  • Like
Reactions: steve
Dave & Steve

Thanks for the advice. At home I do well on the trainer with DVD's and use the hardest gear. The bike I use at the gym is digital and I do take it up to 20 but I think the max is 25?

I'll check out group rides and even recreational ones, something to be learned in any of them. The weather is getting better here. Like you said worse case I get dropped. And maybe I am not the only one. Still, external issues like wind to mention one will provide valuable experience. The Garmin 705 will log it all which is nice including the hills.

Bill
 
Originally Posted by Kg4fxg .

Dave & Steve

Thanks for the advice. At home I do well on the trainer with DVD's and use the hardest gear. The bike I use at the gym is digital and I do take it up to 20 but I think the max is 25?

I'll check out group rides and even recreational ones, something to be learned in any of them. The weather is getting better here. Like you said worse case I get dropped. And maybe I am not the only one. Still, external issues like wind to mention one will provide valuable experience. The Garmin 705 will log it all which is nice including the hills.

Bill

i think your full of ****. Your telling us your pushing a 53/11 gear at 130 rpm and only getting up to 150bpm and not feeling winded? your so full of ****.

Sorry, I shouldn't be so harsh, but seriously there is no way that you can be in your highest gear and pushing those numbers. Make sure when you put your bike into your trainer that you are tightening down the drum properly as well.
 
Originally Posted by Motobecane .

i think your full of ****. Your telling us your pushing a 53/11 gear at 130 rpm and only getting up to 150bpm and not feeling winded? your so full of ****.

Sorry, I shouldn't be so harsh, but seriously there is no way that you can be in your highest gear and pushing those numbers. Make sure when you put your bike into your trainer that you are tightening down the drum properly as well.
With little or no resistance, most of us could do this /img/vbsmilies/smilies/duck.gif Not a whole lot of point to it though.
 
exactly. Initially I was like "gimme a break" but then i realized if he's on a trainer and only tightens it until the drum is barely touching the the tire, he could probably do it easy. Tighten it down 2 1/2 full turns and it will be a different story
 
Originally Posted by Kg4fxg .
How do you measure your fitness level?
Try this:
http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/article/training-homebrew-fitness-testing-19175
 
Well I just had very mixed result w/ my trainee. He did ramp test to exhaustion on a lab with lactate and gas measurement (starting 100w and +25w/2 minutes). Watts clearly higher on lower and upper threshold, clearly higher maximal output, heart rates about same on thresholds as prevoius test (162/182/max203). Ml/kg were low, almost lower than at the end of last racing season? Wtf? Too much onbike strenght endurance training and no stimulus for cardiovascular system?
 
So if I'm reading your post correctly in addition to higher power measured at the test's defined LT1, LT2 points your rider showed greater power generation at VO2 Max yet lower actual weight scaled VO2 Max gas exchange rates in ml/kg/min.

If so, it seems there are only two possibilities:

- Your rider gained weight and the weight normalized VO2 Max decreased even though the rider's absolute VO2 Max in liters/min actually increased or stayed the same.

- Your rider somehow improved their Gross Metabolic Efficiency and delivered more power to the pedals for the same or lower combustion power

That or some combination of the two seems to me as your only options for understanding higher P_VO2 Max at lower weight normalized VO2 Max. Of course there's the third option of test error in one or both tests or test methodology changes between the tests which is perhaps the most likely possibility.

Hard to say, but the bottom line seems to be that your rider is sustaining more power at all points of interest. In the end that seems like the most important test result.

-Dave
 
I just got results to see so no weight gained, well, +300 grams and f-% is same so that is daily variation. Max output 70ml/kg last test with 350w (5,5w/kg), now 375w (5,9w/kg) and it's 61 ml/kg? Is that efficiency /img/vbsmilies/smilies/rolleyes.gif Mxhr about same in both tests 202-203. Resting lactate was low, but top lactate was highest ever measured (almost 13 when normally 9-10) Lactate clearance was worse than before. Looks like winter training that had emphasis on low rpm Tempo training cut aerobic engine quite a bit. Upper threshold had huge improvement and lower got lower so this is sugar burning engine this time. Stage racing gets challenging. TBH I'm glad it's quite early season.