Heart Rate high for Sweet Spot

When i did my first ftp test, after half a year of riding, i had an avg hr of 185. Now i cant even get close to that for the same type of effort.

220-age is a population average and therefore completely useless at an individual level, particularly amongst athletes

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ftp was set using ramp test and i dont know my LTHR.

I feel like I’m really well trained when my HR doesn’t drift up but rather stabilizes and holds steady even at the end of something like a 2x20.

When my HR is too high for a SS workout I know something is off. One way to rule out loss of fitness is do some Z2 rides/workouts to see if they feel too hard. If that is not the case then it is usually recovery/nutrition. Water, alcohol, clean diet, muscular/CNS/endocrinal fatigue - they all could factor in. If Z2 ride is too hard - then it could be due to loss of CVS fitness: capillarization, stroke volume, etc.

Disclaimer. I am using all these terms quite loosely, but directionally this is how I believe things should work.

I guess you are getting at the three main energy systems are used at all workout intensities. It is the portion that each energy system contributes that changes depending on the intensity of work being done.

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Problem is this was my first SS workout. I dont really have other workouts to check except taku where my HR was around 160.

If you are new to this kind of training and these type of efforts, I wouldn’t worry too much about your HR for now. The important thing for you is to gauge how the workouts feel at SS, and how difficult you feel the SS workouts are to finish. SS workouts should feel challenging, but not like you’re hanging on for dear life just to finish. Once you adapt to the work over the weeks, you will likely notice your HR start to come down a bit for these efforts.

After a few weeks you will naturally have a better handle on what your HR does for different efforts, and then you will be in a better position to judge if you think it is too high or too low for the work you are performing. Like many things training related, you are an experiment of one, so best to view this data through your personal lens.

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Does seem to me a bit high. Can I assume you are new to the sport? Physical activity? If yes, take it slow. Perhaps look at Traditional Base plans. Figure out your “ventilatory” threshold for Z2 workouts and start from there. Retest in a few weeks and see if SS becomes tolerable.

As a kid always used to be very active (cycling/soccer/running). At age 17 i started focussing on soccer and played at a pretty high level, also went to the gym 4-5 times a week . But around two years ago i started getting issues with my stomach acid. Had to throw up pretty much every game so i quit playing at a high level. Still played in a sunday league. The stomach issues got worse and worse over time got an operation in august and was not allowed any sports for around 8 weeks. Probably lost alot of fitness in those weeks.

Also did the ramp test on zwift (since my trainerroad would crash alot that day and wanted to get started) dont know if that did affect the ftp i got ?

I can’t comment on your medical condition. However, what you are describing makes sense to me: I would not be surprised your plasma volume took a hit. Perhaps something a short ramp test would not be able to capture. Thus, higher HR.

Health permitting, I think you should be fine soon.

Having same kind of problems as described above. I have been riding on trainerroad for two years, mostly MV, summers outside, assiomas indoors and outdoors. Max HR 195, LTHR 175. Started riding indoors again 3wks ago, did a ramp test at 331w. I’m doing a MV/HV hybrid, MV rides on monday, wednesday, and friday, others HV. Now on SSB1. Have two big fans and a window.
Did a Carillon +2 yesterday, HR was steadily climbing on the intervals, first two reached LTHR towards the end, second two at the half way and last to before the ahlf way, maxhr being 182. Ride felt pretty hard, not feeling like I could do the same tomorrow, the day befor was 34TSS 0.67IF
Last week during Geiger +2 I had to tone down the intensity, HR was almost at LTHR on the first interval. Other rides I did outside.
Both times my leg were burning towards the end. Last year I dont remember SS being this hard, is my FTP too high or have I just forgotten how it should be?

Have you got the DUO or UNO assiomas? If the DUO what is your L/R balance like?

Just mentioning as I’ve has a few instances when one of may pedals starts under reporting power over time - this showed up as the L/R balance changing.

That said… sweet spot can be hard!!!

Duos, balance is 49-51 or 50-50, and zero offset is always 0, so shouldn’t be that.
Yea they are, the heart rate just seems too high to me.

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If you can’t do 5x12 sweet spot with 4 minute rests, then barring any life factors like lack of sleep or very bad nutrition etc, yes your FTP is overestimated.

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I suppose it is, cannot figure any other reason myself. I did ride 40min at 328w average few weeks ago and felt like could have done an hour, had to stop due time constrains. That was outside, so little bit apples and oranges. Also last ramp test I felt great, so that might have been just a fast day.
Thanks for the help and confirming my suspicions, I’ll drop my ftp by 10w or so.

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I’ve been having a similar experience lately on SSB HV, although it’s a bit of a calculated move I may back away from. I haven’t been lowering intensity and I’m completing all workouts through week 3, but this time around my HR is higher than it generally is during sweet spot (in the past longer intervals I’d stay under just under 160, now getting to mid 160s) and my legs start to feel the burn toward the end of 60mins of time in zone. For now I’m just going with it because it’s SSB1 and less demanding than SSB2, and I’m curious to see if working at a little higher but doable area is any different from my prior experiences where I’m feeling fresh as a daisy for even the most demanding stuff, so it’s a bit of a calculated risk.

But I’d agree with the comment above that you might want to back off if you truly can’t do the stuff without modification and I’m definitely going to have to think about it for the last couple of weeks of SSB which have 20min intervals and are really going to get more demanding.

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I think I could have done the the Geiger +2 as it was but it would have been quite an workout, surely next few days would have been only for recovery, didn’t seem that purposefully. I’ve tried SSB1 HV once 1,5 years ago, couldn’t do it fully, it was hard. The rest week felt really nice after that. Bounced back to SSB2 MV after that, for me it feels like there is quite a jump between MV and HV.

I’d say that’s on the higher side. Even while not knowing anything else about you, statistically speaking this is probably more in your high threshold to even low vo2 range. Being that it felt hard but doable means you may have been pretty fresh with minimal fatigue from recent efforts from days prior. But to repeat this for a few days straight or even week after week will begin to wear you down. But if you have a lot of fitness to gain, this was probably a good ride for you. Shoot for a HR in the lower 160’s for consistent sweet spot and work to get more minutes in, in that range.

I can definitely see why you’d think the 331W FTP estimate from the ramp test was reasonable then!

Since you mentioned your indoor setup has sufficient cooling, I can only imagine it coming down to how steady the 40min was + your anaerobic capacity being good, and/or your TTE @ actual FTP being a fair bit longer. Either way dropping by 10W and seeing how it goes sounds like a decent plan, good luck and let us know how it goes :+1: