Most TT leagues have road bike TT divisions in the UK at least. At the end of the day unless you are at the top level you’re only competing against your own previous best so it doesn’t matter what bike you are on.
OP, please keep us updated on how you go over the next few weeks.
But what happens at 300 watts does. I would contend that 300 watts after an hour, is different to 300 watts after 5 mins. I’d say they are not the same, negating the contention 300 watts is 300:watts. Implying it’s delivering the same stimulus regardless of context is flawed I’d say.
Missing the point. The power is the power, it’s an output - 300w is always 300w whether it’s hard to put out or easy, whether you are on a hill or a descent, whether you have already done 3 hours or only 5 minutes. It doesn’t deliver a stimulus at all. The workload delivers the stimulus. The power is the output.
Heart rate is a response, it reacts to multiple different things, only one of which is how hard you are working. 150bpm one day to another could represent completely different amounts of workload.
Yes, there are caveats when diving in to power data and context needs to be understood, but in comparison heart rate data is the wild west.
AI/ML/Data science in all forms, one thing is always true - the cleaner the input data, the better quality the response. As TR can’t know all the different variables influencing your HR response it is highly likely to do more damage to the model than improvements.
Yeah, watts are a very good measure of work (output) in comparison to HR. From an output/performance standpoint, a watt is a watt if measured in the same place by an accurate device. By from a physiological and adaptation perspective, 300w can be very different from 300w. Producing 300w of work at a 90rpm cadence is very different from producing 300w at a 40rpm cadence (as an extreme example). And just to really throw a wrench in the wattage metric, if your FTP (lactate steady state) is 300w at 90rpm, there is a good chance 300w is not your FTP at a different cadence. Wattage is an excellent metric, but it’s far from perfect. HR is much more flawed (in my opinion), but is still a valuable data point. I don’t often ride/train with HR, but there are situations where I do (and I always track it with my Oura ring when not training).
Ya I’ll check back every now and then or answer questions.
Not surprisingly though I got my first and second red light in my first week. Today and tomorrow the ai wants me to rest. Obviously I didn’t.
After confirming my ftp yesterday and a bit of extra endurance work I completed Warlow today with no issues. Max hr stayed comfortable around 147 on each set with the 6 min rest periods getting back down to 100.
I like the hr discussion. I definitely like using hr as in my case it’s very stable. If the room starts getting too hot I can see the hr slowly rise and after turning on the fan it drops 5-6 bpm. Since my hr range is so short I can tell if I’m working too hard after not resting. I can’t really relate it to cadence yet as it seems I’m a grinder on the bike as I was with a low cadence running. I had to put in a lot of work running to up my cadence and it seems I’ll need to do the same on the bike.
I like the concept of taking HR into account, also. As someone mentioned earlier ‘watts are watts’, and someone else said ‘bpm is bpm’, the issue I see is that 200 watts at 120 bpm is different than 200 watts at 150 bpm (for the same person), and could indicate that a change in training schedule is needed.
Like you, I am new to TR and trying to figure it all out. I come from a long cycling background and am also a bit flummoxed by the ‘ease’ of the training I’m being served up. To that end, I am looking at the alternates offered for each of my workouts, and changing to something that is harder. Even in just a few days of this I am seeing that the AI is starting to offer more taxing workouts. Still not to where I think I could be, but it’s still learning (and I fed it a fair amount of history).
So, I’m going to just continue to do that for a couple more weeks and see how it goes. With a 30 day trial period, I hope to have a better assessment by the end.
As for then number of days training each week, at first I found it ‘odd’ that I wasn’t seeing 7 workouts each week. But, at least so far, I’m taking that as an opportunity to do some other things. Yesterday I went to the gym to lift some weights and climb some ‘rocks’, and it was great to not feel like I also needed to get on the bike.
You’re putting words into my mouth. My argument is that power is a better measure of stimulus than heart rate. The precise stimulus may depend on other factors like the precise prescription of the workout, cadence, rest in between work intervals, etc. I thought that was not up for debate.
The main argument people like @Fredd and I are making is that heart rate is a reaction to the stimulus and thus, is a secondary metric, whereas power is a primary metric.
None of us were arguing against that. I’m doing precisely that every time I hop on the bike. But heart rate and RPE are secondary metrics.
- Watts determine where my stimulus should be in order to achieve my aims.
- Heart rate and RPE tell me how my body reacts to the stimulus and e. g. if I am physically or mentally fatigued.
I suspect that your heart rate being so low is a strong indicator that you are currently limited by your muscular endurance. Sort of the reverse of the example I gave: my cardiovascular system was totally ok with running 18k without any training (running, not cycling). The rest of my body wasn’t.
If I were you, that’s where I’d focus on. It will likely also be your limiter. So your cardiovascular system may be totally cool with 3 or even 4 hard workouts per week, the rest of your body might not.
That’s something most beginners struggle with.
But is this true? If your HR is higher than normal in order to achieve the ‘stimulus’ level of watts, aren’t you risking not being able to adequately recover and, thus, not being able to achieve your aims?
Depends why it’s higher. Quadruple espresso and cadence 5 rpm higher than normal will do it for me. RPE lower than expected. HR higher than expected. Watts pretty much as expected. 
I feel like I get so much more out of my threshold workouts when my HR is running about 10 bpm over LTHR.
The kind of stimulus and the amount of stimulus are two different dimensions. A crucial determinant of the former is the power zone you are in. The amount has to be adjusted so that your fatigue is correctly managed.
I’d argue that the most valuable use of HR during a workout isn’t worrying about it being too high, but too low. If hitting my power targets and the HR is running a bit high, I personally don’t get concerned about that. The only time I might let HR dictate how I execute a workout is when I’m already feeling fatigued and I’m struggling to push through a hard interval and my HR will not ramp up to a somewhat normal level for the effort. For me, that’s a strong indicator of overall fatigue and can be enough to call it quits on the workout and take a rest.
What’s challenging for many current/former runners is that because tracking power isn’t common while running, easy/endurance runs are typically paced based on heart rate.
Where I look at heart rate the most are my easy Z2 rides. I feel like Z2 rides are obviously to build endurance, but also as a bit of a “break” to the cardiovascular system. I don’t want to see my heart rate above around 75% max, during most endurance rides. When it’s really hot out, or maybe in the higher power portion of Z2, it is sometimes inevitable.
If someone rides for 3 hrs in the cold at 175 watts and their heart rate is 135 bpm, and then rides in the heat at 175 watts for 3 hrs and their heart rate is 155-160 bpm, I don’t think that the difference in impact to the cardiovascular system in each session is irrelevant and shouldn’t be taken into account for training.
There’s lots of arguments on both sides that I think are relevant, and it’s not completely black or white.
While I don’t use HR much, I do think about the implications of the higher HR on stress and TTE. I’m a big user of caffeine for racing or for hard training efforts. For responders, the data is pretty clear that it’s a significant (and legal) performance boost and my experience matches that. But, I don’t think the performance is “free” when it’s cranking the HR up significantly even if RPE is reduced. I don’t worry about it if I’m doing a 3-4 hour race or training session, but many of my races are 5+ hours. Is loading up on caffeine at the start of an 8+ hour race going to help when it’s pushing the HR up early or is that just making you stronger early at the cost of fading faster? I’ve done a little googling on the subject and didn’t find anything useful, would be an interesting study if there isn’t already something out there.
I still use caffeine for all racing even though I suspect there must me a cost to the higher HR. If the race is under ~4 hours, I’ll load up on ~400mg before the start and I’ll be hitting the rev limiter at the start. If it’s a long race, I’ll do 100mg at the start and then ~50mg per an hour to keep it a bit more mellow.
Ha - yes, 100%. I love caffeine and believe in its positive impact on performance. With that in mind, my heart rate is also very sensitive to caffeine so I take it in much smaller dosages than most people. I’m familiar with the mg/kg equations, but it’s also very dependent on person. If I take too much, like you mentioned, it has my heart rate bumping up against the limiter. My max HR is 190. On a longer race I may reasonably average 165-170. If I take too much caffeine I can easily be higher than that early on with a moderate effort. I’ll have maybe 75-100mg, 90 mins before the race, maybe a bit more at race start, then around 30-40 mg/hr starting 1-2 hrs in.
I also have to be mindful of caffeine during easy weekday 1-2 hr endurance sessions. I’ll usually just take 40-50mg before. If I take too much, my heart rate will bump up/over 150bpm on easier endurance sessions where it should be (and I prefer it to be) 130-140ish.
This comes down to the old; “Am I training when I am in the sauna and my HR is in Z2 for an hour”.
The answer is no.
You might want to check what adaptive signals are produced from sauna sessions.
Cool. I’m going to do 10 hours of Z2 sauna sessions a week now instead of riding and check my FTP gains at the end of the year.