My take is that it is BS.
Cardiac drift happens for numerous reasons; attempting to divine metabolic function from such changes is a coach’s errand.
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Since everyone’s capacity to absorb and benefit from training differs, trial and error is your ultimate solution.
An experienced coach might be able to help you get dialed a bit more quickly, but OTOH if you are especially fragile or robust, their rules-of-thumb may mislead you.
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I start off with no fans for 10-15 minutes and then turn one on after I warm up. I keep it on low and have moved it farther away so I’m just getting a little air movement across the body.
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I’ve exchanged some private messages with tshortt on this, and I haven’t found decoupling to be helpful except after restarting serious cycling following my off-season. After 4-6 weeks my power:HR relationship quickly stabilizes and I can show you all sorts of endurance-only, and endurance+stuff going out to 4 hours and decoupling is less than 5%. After looking at decoupling over 4 years I’ve never seen much use beyond that short transition from off-season to training. But everyone is different so maybe it might help you.
Instead of decoupling, my opinion is the same as old’s below (trial&error).
Agree, and regardless IMHO it is better to track progress with power. I’ll use HR for a short period of time after the off-season, before doing any benchmarking. And HR caps when it gets really hot, it is a long ride, and I’m not acclimated yet.
Exactly.
In the words of a local Kona age grouper “embrace the heat!” Think it was a ScientificTriathlon podcast, one of the ‘secrets’ to Mathew Hayman’s indoor training before winning Paris Roubaix is thought to be increasing vo2max by training in warmer indoor temps (AFAIK it wasn’t planned, just post indoor observation). I’ve also seen gains, my best ramp test was after doing some long weekend rides in 100F / 38C temps and then doing the ramp test in my garage at 82F / 28C. I hate the heat and acclimation sucks, but no denying there are benefits.
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These are the only recommendations I’ve listened to:
and I’m not actively following any updates to those recommendations.
I only end up with a soaking wet shirt and towel, and the bike is fine. But the local Kona age grouper has pools of sweat when she is forced to do an indoor workout.
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I’m always struggling with combining that z1 80% border with “make easy really easy”. But don’t want to drift into the ISM thread so will stop right here 
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ok so re-reading Seiler’s guidelines from FastTalk episode 54 I see him saying 60-80% of one-hour power. So for me right now that is 150W-200W, a pretty healthy range, and yes my endurance rides fall into that range and I’m able to recover. But that is back-fitting his loose recommendations to what I’m doing. I didn’t start with those recommendations by design.
My personal opinion is to go out and ride 65-80% FTP based on feel and recovery, thru some trial&error. Don’t overthink it. Just push the pedals for 2-4 hours and don’t stop unless necessary. Just do the work. If you consistently (week after week) have trouble recovering at 65% FTP then lower it, or pay more attention to the non-endurance work you are doing.
You missed the rest of what he said, go look at my transcription again.
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Yep, I tend to not see it for low-intensity long rides, but on the number of hours I’m doing (10hrs), it’s likely just that I’m not able to go long enough now to trigger a big HR response toward the end.
A point I brought up w/ @bbarrera is I think different coaches have different ways of using the concept of decoupling. Perhaps because of Friel covering it in one of his books, and also perhaps due to guys like Seiler using it to explore his low-intensity durability concept, we tend to focus on decoupling as it relates to long-steady low intensity riding. Moreover, when we do observe it (even when controlling for all the shortcomings @Bbt67 alludes to), figuring out what it means or more importantly, what can I do with this information to improve my training is not definitive. Coaches and thought leaders are taking educated guesses, but it’s not set in stone. Do I cut the ride when it happens? How much is too much? Do I let it go a bit to “do some overload”? Am I chasing windmills? But those question just apply to using it in that context.
There are other ways that you could use decoupling that seem to provide actionable intelligence that have nothing to do with long slow riding. For example, I’ve seen a coach use it more during tempo work and is absolutely dismissive of looking at it for LSD, and he’s definitely not a “power for all the things, HR is redundant” kind of guy.
Maybe decoupling is not the best term for all use cases. At least some will look at HR response both near the end of a power prescribed interval, and during the recovery interval.
Sure my all day pace is upper 130s bpm. I’ve loosely used that for pacing long days on century rides. And looking back those resulted in (roughly) a range of .65-.80 IF.
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Yeah, like @bbarrera was saying. Yeah, definitely those situations.
Sure, HR response. In those cases that may be a better term for it. However, I have not seen a use for HR alone that isn’t redundant or useless (useless now that we have power). IOW, when it’s useful, it is useful as it relates to power. It’s coupled with it, or not, to varying degrees. In your example (and it’s a good one), we’re still not looking at it in a vacuum or isolated.
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This may be or may not be a useful contribution.
I’ve just got a roughly POL plan from a coach. He had me do a 45-60 min all out effort after 3 (4?) easy days for a baseline FTP (Zwift route I chose ended up lasting just over 50 min, and came out at 5% lower than the ramp test).
There’s one interval session (at/above FTP) a week in the plan.
The remainder is endurance rides. They are pegged at c.70% FTP, with no sustained time above 75%, though in one ride a week I should be looking for 2x20 SS pushes or 5 or 6 8/10 RPE hill efforts. We’re monitoring HR but are using it as a way of measuring stress/fatigue rather than anything else.
Only into week 2 so far, but enjoying it ATM. The initial plan is to run this until progress stagnates and then probably look at a reduced volume SS block.
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The idea was to get away from the relentless interval diet, as I’m getting a bit beaten up, and 3-10 minute power is disproportionately high/60m power is disproportionately low (delete as appropriate).
Broad outline:
Mon: 90m-2hr endurance ride (with body position/pedalling drills)
Tuesday: intervals (c.75 min session)
Wednesday: as Monday, but with cadence work
Thurs: off
Friday: 2hr endurance ride with SS pushes/hill efforts
Sat: 4hr endurance ride (aiming for av, 65% FTP here, rather than 70%)
Sun: off
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On the trainer, I tend to default to 88-90 rpm in Z2. Outside, it tends to creep up to 95-98; I can be a bit of a twiddler and we’re looking at applying a bit more torque. So the cadence work looks like 3 mins self-selected, 3 mins @70 rpm, alternate for 30 mins or until muscular fatigue becomes excessive/knee starts to niggle.
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What’s your take on this?
No real opinion on the validity of the idea. I question the real need for such a tool, however. Your legs will tell you when you’re going too hard during your endurance rides, as you will pay the price on your hard days.
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If I interpret you correctly you are doubting the concept of „thresholds“. But that article indicates that there seems to be some form of barrier/threshold.
I don’t think that there is anything magical about training at any particular intensity, if that’s what you mean. That idea went out of vogue when the Berlin wall fell.
I’m with you and @old_but_not_dead_yet said similar.
But besides the practical application I just find it interesting nonetheless. Like @ambermalika always in the podcast says that the human body is so mind blowing. Electron transport chain FTW 
!!
It’s early days but would be nice @ambermalika to hear your take on the need of “threshold” concepts for training and if so on some early research using HRV data as (live on the fly) a marker for an aerobic threshold (From laboratory to roadside: Real-time assessment and monitoring of the aerobic threshold in endurance-typed sports - BJSM blog - social media's leading SEM voice)