negative cardiac drift



bigwillie013

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Nov 21, 2007
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I know that heart rate isn't very fancy here but I did a crit last sunday and while the speed and watts were stable for the whole race (1st, 2nd and 3rd 30 min's were almost equal re. speed and Watt avg) my heart rate went down considerably. This was accompanied by a less stressed feeling in my lungs. My legs felt good all the way but my breathing was hard as can be for the 1st 20 min's :eek: and then eased down, likewise did the heart rate.

How come that I was able to produce the same power with less (felt) effort -RPE down from 9 to 7 on the 10 scale ? Bad warm up, typical for crit racing (I'm fairly new with masters racing) or anything that is obvious but that I don't see? :confused:

For the sake of seeing it I attached the wko graph. It has a 1min smoothing on it. BTW my FTP is set at 295W and the 60min MMP NP is 294W;) . I guess this means 1) my FTP is set correctly and 2) this race had me on the verge :)
 
bigwillie013 said:
I know that heart rate isn't very fancy here but I did a crit last sunday and while the speed and watts were stable for the whole race (1st, 2nd and 3rd 30 min's were almost equal re. speed and Watt avg) my heart rate went down considerably. This was accompanied by a less stressed feeling in my lungs. My legs felt good all the way but my breathing was hard as can be for the 1st 20 min's :eek: and then eased down, likewise did the heart rate.

How come that I was able to produce the same power with less (felt) effort -RPE down from 9 to 7 on the 10 scale ? Bad warm up, typical for crit racing (I'm fairly new with masters racing) or anything that is obvious but that I don't see? :confused:

For the sake of seeing it I attached the wko graph. It has a 1min smoothing on it. BTW my FTP is set at 295W and the 60min MMP NP is 294W;) . I guess this means 1) my FTP is set correctly and 2) this race had me on the verge :)
Have you looked at cadence over the course of the race? Adrenaline too can play a big part in getting the HR up at the start :)
 
Launching straight into 420watts will tax the system tremendously. For events of that length that are going to start at a really quick pace you need to have a really good warm up. Try getting a good 15 to 20 minutes in.

As Rick mentioned, adreneline plays a huge part too.

I've run into situations in the past where drinking too much carbohydrate drinks before the start has pretty much worked me over during the start and for the first 20 minutes and made it seem terribly hard to get going. I never figured out what it was but I pretty much stopped taking on carbs in the couple of hours before the race, unless it was a really early start and then I just missed breakfast altogether and just started drinking/eating as the race started.
 
My hypothesis would be: inadequate warm-up -> excessive glycogenolysis at onset of exercise -> large increase in muscle lactate at the onset of exercise -> movement of fluid from the vascular space to the intracellular space -> decline in cardiac filling pressure -> increase in heart rate to maintain cardiac output. This was then gradually reversed over the course of the race as the lactate was oxidized/diffused out of the muscle and fluid was drawn back into the vasculature.
 
acoggan said:
My hypothesis would be: inadequate warm-up -> excessive glycogenolysis at onset of exercise -> large increase in muscle lactate at the onset of exercise -> movement of fluid from the vascular space to the intracellular space -> decline in cardiac filling pressure -> increase in heart rate to maintain cardiac output. This was then gradually reversed over the course of the race as the lactate was oxidized/diffused out of the muscle and fluid was drawn back into the vasculature.
Explains why l can never jump strait into L4 intervals without blowing up,
who knew!
 
bubsy said:
...who knew!
Only every coach or trainer who ever insisted on good warmups before hard efforts or told folks not to start 40k TTs with a VO2 Max effort:D

Though I gotta admit no one ever layed it out to me quite the way Andy just put it....

-Dave
 
My 'hypo-feces' is that you have a loose heart rate monitor belt, need new batteries in the transmitter or could do with a little gel. There's something about that trace that just doesn't look right...
 
@ Rick: I have looked into the cadenece but that doesn't help any further as there were no significant shifts from the beginning to anywhere further on, but still a valid point as with the adrenaline. I'm pretty much still very upbeat before a race like that.:D

@Andy: that's actually what I figured but I have to admit that I do have my mental problem with a "good" warm up as I always fear I'm throwing away too much of my energy with it :eek: . Anyway I attach the warm up graph for your insight and if I take what you're saying then this wasn't enough and or adequate, right?:eek:

@ Swampy: if you're referring to the ups and downs I can assure you that's nothing like a loose HRM but simply how it went. My HR went from 160 -140 in like a few seconds once having passed the initial 20 mins. Hard accelaration out of 2 corners per lap and after 20-30 secs just coasting for 1 min or so. Ridiculous, isn't it? And re CH's: I'm sure I've broken the rule of not eating within the last hour but only the last 5 minutes by eating a banana 30mins before the start :( And re. the direct launch into 420 W that's not right: it was a launch into 800W! The graph attached has a 1min smoothing on it!

Thanks for your repsonses so far. It's getting a bit brighter in this dark room already ;)