HR during Z2 - when do you call it?

Training
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The Seiler and Fast Talk guys say to use heart rate rather than power for z2 and I agree. And endurance should be z2 OR below. Sitting right at the z2/z3 border should not be the goal for most workouts, although sometimes is nice to do. Keep in mind that almost all other sport athletes train with heart rate instead of power.

Heart rate measures how hard your body is working internally while power tells you your external output but nothing about the physiological effect. And endurance is all about the physiological effect and keeping that low enough so that you can get volume without stress.

In my experience, most TR endurance workouts are too intense and I regularly decrease by about 10% unless the ride is short. I also nail all of my above threshold workouts, including long efforts (like 4x8 min at 105%) so I don’t think my FTP is set too high. I want to feel mostly good when I finish an endurance ride, like I could hop on the bike and do the same thing again tomorrow, but a bit tired and hungry. I don’t want to feel a burn in my legs but may start to feel sort of hollow/empty over time.

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22

The worse I felt and/or the more important/strenuous the upcoming workouts, the more likely I would be to just pull the plug early.

OTOH, if I felt normal and didn’t have anything really important in the immediate horizon, the more likely I would be to just keep on keepin’ on.

One other factor that would enter into my decision would be the weather. If my HR (which I never measure, but that’s the scenario) were grossly elevated due heat and I wasn’t already somewhat acclimated, I would be extra careful not to overdo things. I have learned from experience that pushing too hard in the heat when I am not used to it can set me back for a week or more.

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23

I ride on RPE. Would depend on how I’m feeling.

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24

Never had that happen, well, sort of, a couple times over the last 8 years. When my HRM strap needed replacing. Guess I would start riding junk miles :wink: to see if HR would come down. And hopefully I’d be wearing watch and check if HRM was reading the same as watch. If not stop and take pulse the old way. Then if everything checked out, keep riding if I felt normal.

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25

Sometimes my hr is up 10bpm from normal at the start of Z2 ride, then I just take it easy close to 60% FTP and the hr usually slowly drops during the ride so I end up with negative decoupling.
If it was 25bpm over normal I would probably just rest or do a recovery ride.

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26

PPP: It’s called training with power, not training by power.

PPP: They’re called levels and not zones for a reason.

PPP: The training levels are descriptive, not prescriptive.

PPP: Power calibrates PE, PE modulates power.

IOW (to start every sentence with a TLA), anybody training by power (or HR) is doing it wrong in the first place.

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27

When i was training for mountain running and climbing most of the work was z2 hr.
A quick way to find your z2hr is only nose breathing in and out do a slow gentle ramp over 20m after warm up and where you find its getting more difficult to only nose breathe is the top of your z2. Where you find this power / pace hold this for the next 20m to see how stable the hr is at this pace/power (Preferably on the turbo or spin bike if you hit a hill could put you above z2 range)
Also if you have Training peaks analysis the hr decoupling should be below 5% for true z2. Should analyse the second 20m if possible.
Have a look at uphill athlete website alot of info on z2 training there.

It can differ alot between people so asking if people are similar etc isnt a good guide imo
I know friends whos z2 ceiling is 135 mine was 153 last time i done the test
Depends on physiology previous training how rested you were when you done the test.
Hope this helps

28

By the nose breathing method I’m in zone 3 whilst sat on the sofa :joy:

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29

Interesting how people disregard HR.

I do my endurance rides only on HR, just every once in a while check the power. After the ride I check to see the decoupling.

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30

Yes I’m intrigued that people decide to miss out on the extra insights it gives, especially combined with power and RPE. Some actionable during the session and some after the event.

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31

It is Always one of these, or something I forgot to mention.

Agree with this.

Moreover, aren’t you (not you specifically, but anyone reading this) using all of it, all at once, all the time? It might just be the way we have to communicate these ideas in written form that make it seem like we’re being overly reductionist, but it’s never : “assess heart rate, adjust ride”, “cross-examine power, multiply by coefficient, reduce input”, “garmin says foo, I say bar”.

Or perhaps more clearly, I don’t have a clear-cut flowchart to weigh power more than HR, how I feel more than the other two, or an inability to realize (for example): “oh, it’s hot, that’s why I’m drinking so much and my HR is high”. It would be like walking down the street and thinking: “I’m going to breath air right now”. I’ve literally never thought that.

I have posted before something to the effect of “I don’t use an single thing, I use all of it”, and based on responses it often seems like ppl think I’m expressing some “kum ba yah”, let’s just all get along, kind of sentiment. I am not…even though I dearly want everyone to get along. :slight_smile:

It’s just always all of it, and if anything sticks out (like I think is meant by the OP), then I might weigh it more in that moment/context. But that never means “I ride to power”, or “I ride based on HR”, or even the trendy “ride to RPE” (for those not accustomed to exercise psychology assessments, and don’t want to get teased on your group ride, you might say “feel”). You think about all of it, all at once, pretty much all the time (and some other stuff), and make a call.

32

<For starters, let’s call it what it is: cardiac drift, not “decoupling”.

The question is, what does it tell you? That it’s hot and humid out? You don’t need to measure HR to know that. That you’ve become dehydrated? Oops, too late (“eat before you’re hungry and drink before you’re thirsty”). That your “base fitness” (whatever that is) isn’t good enough yet? Sorry, but no - HR is primarily a measure of cardiovascular strain/fitness, whereas endurance performance is primarily dependent on muscular metabolic fitness. Furthermore, although the fitter you are the less cardiac drift is likely to occur, it can’t be avoided entirely, at least at higher exercise intensities. So, given that it doesn’t really represent useful, actionable intelligence, why distract yourself with it in the first place? (Let me guess: because some coach or influencer hyped paying attention to it.)

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33

I’m not educated enough to have an argument. I stated that a few educated people such as Seiler and Inigo - just to name a couple, mentioned that you should keep an eye on HR, power and feel for endurance rides. If this is deemed a hype, it’s a whole different thing.

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34

That depends on the duration of the event. Absolutely actionable and recoverable from on brevets and ultra distance events.

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35

I think the idea is that if you’re using heartrate to gauge your hydration, you should maybe rethink your strategy.

N = 1. My HRM stopped working a few weeks ago and I decided to wait until black Friday to see what deals there are. In the meantime, even though I’m quite a data nerd I really haven’t missed it, and it might be helping me get better at figuring out RPE.

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36

What strategy do you use to assess hydration status during ultra cycling durations?

Remembering that no one was saying using heart rate alone.

37

The thread is about heart rate. Someone mentioned decoupling. Someone else mentioned that cardiac drift can be a sign of all kinds of things, including dehydration, but that it’s best to catch dehydration earlier than later. You pointed out that you can still survive an ultra event even if you get dehydrated. I tried to bring it back to the fact that heart rate is maybe not the best way to monitor hydration. Are we arguing about anything? Not sure, but I don’t really think so.

I live where it gets 110+ in the summer. My hydration strategy is to drink like a fish, pour water on myself when possible, and monitor RPE closely. YMMV.

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38

The OP was about heart rate and power and decoupling / cardiac drift. Later on RPE got introduced etc.

I was responding to the simplistic comment that’s it over once you are dehydrated, it’s too late etc, when it isn’t in long duration events.

Now others have said heart rate doesn’t tell you anything. But from experience I’d say the trinity of RPE, heart rate and power combined with your knowledge of everything else you know tells you rather a lot about what’s going on.

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39

Did I read the same as you? Something like got dehydrated to the point that blood plasma volume dropped, which caused heart rate to increase, and I use HR to monitor my hydration because its too inconvenient to drink water. Ignoring a few other reasons HR might increase. That made my Monday morning - the most entertaining hydration strategy that I’ve read in a long time. If I read that correctly.

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Who wrote that, which post?