Update on one of ISM’s athletes B McN. December data. Plenty of zone 2, pretty much at the outer edge:
however, as usual, we don’t know what did not get uploaded to Strava. Haga reports a much higher volume. This is something to be kept in mind.
I guess that explains why Inigo doesn’t recommend low glycogen training.
Lot of time in Z2 .
With my cyclists, it is difficult to make them understand to keep the power in this zone because the speed “is not good”.
In the end, many cyclists do a lot of Z2 and Z3.
@bbarrera During your three month base block, I am curious if you rode 100% at your ~130 bpm, or mixed in a little “intensity” to help maintain the higher level systems to some extent. For example, maybe mixing in some tempo, SST, or Supra-threshold work every couple of weeks? What did that look like?
This base is first time working with a coach and he had me doing some intensity every week. My endurance rides were a bit of a mix, some targeting mid z2 HR (Coggan HR zones) and some upper z2 and progressing to z2+ “booster” workouts that ended up pushing HR into tempo because well thats just how my HR works.
Below is a chart of HR for the 3 months. Also showing Friel zones which at the lower zones are a bit wider than Coggan zones. Coggan z2 is 110-134 and Friel z2 is 130-142bpm, so the 24 hours of Friel z1 is mostly in the upper 120s if I had to guess.
Learned a lot this time around by really working a variety of different HR targets, and then switching to power based workouts. During my weight lifting off-season I really scaled back cycling, partly mental break and partly because my twenty something kids were home for the summer. That lower volume of cycling from late June to end of August might be part of the reason for the slow push from below, that along with my insistence on continuing the strength training. My coach is awesome.
Cool, very helpful context. I assume your HR max is ~180 bpm and HR threshold is ~160 bpm. It sounds like you did nearly 100% of your riding in z2 power, and that your heart rate drifted to z3 HR during some of those high-z2 power efforts. Makes sense, and sounds like a solid base building phase. Thanks for sharing!
thanks marco!
very great tracking tool!
can it support garmin 945 HR monitor？
160 LTHR and 175 max. Not really drifting up to z3, can hit that early in the workout and have it stay there… or not.
thanks! Unfortunately this requires “a good chest strap” as the RR intervals need to be accurate, not only the average heart rate, hence no optical sensor will work (during exercise they all average the signal a lot to try to get to something usable, typically that doesn’t work great either). I’d recommend a Polar strap as I have seen issues with other straps as well (for example the tickr HR is good for heart rate, not HRV). Not sure about the Garmin straps unfortunately (the recent ones seem to work well for measurements at rest, so would be inclined to think they can do the job)
That’s a bit of a bummer 
My Garmin 530 bike computer uses HRV for various metrics, and I’m using a Garmin dual ANT+Bluetooth strap.
Not sure where you’re basing that, as i haven’t seen any data showing lt1 in untrained athletes. Anecdotal evidence here says most have lt1 <= 75% of ftp. If we are assuming direct relationship between power and o2 consumption that puts most people at roughly 15 to 20% difference between the two thresholds. (Of course at PPO, there’s an anaerobic contribution, which is why I put the range as it is generally understood that LT2 is 80% of VO2 max).
Also, you don’t really need a lactate profile to figure out LT1, as it is the point where ventilation just starts to increase above conversation pace, as that is the point that Inigo refers to as his Zone 2: easy, but just starting to get hard. Harder than conversation pace, but not really labored breathing. He also points out in the scientific triathlon, just how easy it probably is to identify the thresholds through a talk test. Almost always confirmed by the laboratory results, and typically consistent between those getting tested.
what i noticed from listening to him is that he considers z2 to be at/around aerobic threshold and has that as his bread and butter, not like the <LT1 prescribed by others.
This discussion on LT1 based rides has been really interesting. I’ve been a recreational daily cyclist since 2016, 10+hrs/wk. I started TR/structure April this year, with some decent FTP gains, 265-317W (78-80kg). I want to road-race and have noodled a lot on targeting intensity (vo2max/o-u/ftp/ss), now i’m onto endurance.
Comparing my HR v power curves from intervals.icu for two periods over this time shows clear improvements.
Interestingly, an inflection pt seems to emerge near VT1. (Unfortunately intervals.icu colors changed, blue curve below is purple above).
My questions: Do others see an inflection emerge with training and, if so, is it reasonable to expect LT1 to be at this inflection? My thought is to manage endurance rides around this inflection.
Anecdotally, there is a lot of logical agreement with the various methods of determining LT1/VT1 based on HR, breathing, RPE, etc etc etc.
- Not easy, but not hard, around 4"ish" RPE out of 10
- Roughly 72-76% of Max HR
- Roughly 75% ish of FTP depending
- Breathing starts to “switch”
- If you go a few watts higher it starts to feel like tempo, rather than just being able to ride the line
When I look at my own data, sometimes my HR is a little higher or lower, and sometimes my power is a little higher or lower, but its pretty consistent.
If my coach says to pace a 3-4 hour endurance ride, I’ll usually settle in somewhere in the 245-260w range (FTP around 330-340) and HR will usually be around 152-157bpm (max HR is 203). If I go a little higher, I can tell I have to concentrate and if I go lower, it feels too easy.
IMO if you pay attention you can feel LT1/VT1, even if it can’t be otherwise measured without lactate.
Interesting observation. I notice the same with mine and it’s around the same ballpark of what I think is my LT1. Is it the same assumption for LT2 further along the curve?
Thanks for the reply and summary @stevemz. As you write, the various criteria (RPE, breathing, power, HR-related) are consistent with and maybe suggest the presence of an inflection pt.
Since those criteria are around my power v HR inflection pt, I think this means others should also see similar features in their curves. So “yes” to the first part of the question.
Is there an interesting reason why a VT1/LT1+related inflection was not apparent in my data earlier this year, given the logical anecdotal agreement described?
@conman55, LT2 for me has risen in the past 6 months too, 88-92% maxHR. This seems to be at the higher inflection/rounding pt. This said, I can readily feel LTHR based on over-unders and so on where things change more quickly in time. This makes them easier to notice (for a noob!). Feeling around endurance has been more murky for me.
This also helps me understand @stevemz 's response better. Basically, the power vs hr graph is now revealing my LT1. If I were suitably perceptive in May, I would have been able to feel what @stevemz describes. But the graph didn’t reveal it at that time. Perhaps for idiosyncratic reasons we may not be able to explain.
