MIHECH said:
Experts out there, please help me. Is the LT at the beginning of the season at the same level of heartrate as at your peak (during the season)?So for example, if my LT is 182 bmp at my peak, is it still the same when I start a new season after resting for about 2 weeks without doing anything. Lets suppose that I am always rested and fit, so the conditions are always the same.
Thanks for the answers.
Due to (some) coaches not knowing what they're talking about, we end up with a question like yours (that's not a slam against you).
Some coaches talk utter nonsense that they pretend is based in science, and then promulgate their rubbish.
Anyway, lactate threshold has nothing, whatsoever, to do with heart rate. As the name suggests it's to do with [blood] lactate, and that means having blood taken.
While there are a couple of definition's of LT the main two are the work rate that elicits a 1 mmol/L increase over exercise baseline levels, which results in a lactate of 2.something mmol/L. This is the Coyle definition (and the one that i use when i venture into a lab).
The other definition is the work rate that elicits a fixed 2.5 mmol/L (so, not hugely different from the Coyle definition). This is what i call the Coggan definition.
In these definitions (and all others) it's work rate (power in cycling measured in watts; or velocity in running measured in km/hr or m/s) and lactate (measured in mmol/L). No mention, whatsoever of HR.
Looking at the above definitions, these are both lowish intensities of exercise, coming out at about 10 - 15 % less power than that which can be maintained maximally for ~one hour. Thus, LT can be sustained for up to about 3 hrs or so.
At a given power output, such as that which can be sustained maximally for ~1-hr/FTP, you can find your HR can vary by as much as 10 to 15 b/min depending on what's happening (e.g. anxiety, cadence, temperature, fatigue, prior training, etc)
Ric