But i think there is a difference…
Let say you riding out on a hot day.
You as asked to do sets of 10 minutes at 90% FTP…More than likely you can push that power and ignore the HR…
your speed and mostly other metrics will stay relative stable…
But if you were ask to do 10 minutes at 85% HR the outcome will be very different. Your HR will more than like drift more that you would like… and your speed and other metrics will fall with it…
Yes, of course there’s a difference–pace and power are an instant output measurement where HR is a reactive measurement based on how your body is reacting to that output and the surrounding variables. You shouldn’t ignore one over the other though, especially when it comes to tracking “stress”.
The outcome may be different, but if the goal for the workout was to remain in a certain HR zone then it would be achieved either way and you’d have an idea of what was realistic with the temperature/elevation/humidity/etc going forward for future training/racing (transversely you could do it the other way following power and see how your HR reacts, and subsequent recovery). Blindly following a power/pace target isn’t always the best way to go about things, although there are of course times when you just give’r.
Personally, I reference HR quite a lot in my tri training (well, except the swim…) and it generally shows useful trends for how I’m feeling/how training-tired I am. I know others get more frustrated by it though–you being one of them heh.
Haha, Lionel Sanders just posted a video about his latest training block and discusses what happens when you put blind faith in power (and mix power meters). I’m sure some will say “Classic Lionel making stupid mistakes!”, but he’s also actually sharing this error which I think is the more important take away.
I like Lionel but that is a schoolboy error! Also shows that training exclusively indoors is not the best idea, what I can do on my TT bike outdoors compared to a static trainer is never the same, except its normally slightly higher outdoor for me. I am surprised that someone at his level does not do at least a shakedown or openers outdoors on the race bike. Also, not sure how someone can not perceive a 30watt increase in power. I know if I was suddenly pushing 30Watts more for the same effort it would be noticeable.
I train to Power, but I think HR has a role to play. My heart rate is pretty consistently in the same range when I am doing longer intervals and it is one of the primary indicators I used to see when I may have had an increase in FTP. Of course, I then test to validate but its very useful.
This gets to the problem that we too often take power as the be-all, end-all. Conceptually, it’s quite good.
But the present state of equipment, not to mention common misunderstanding of the greater complexities hiding in single and multiple power devices, lead to LOTS of bad assumptions and mistakes just like LS showcased.
Too often it gets ignored or pushed to “minor consideration” that is not the best way to handle it. This happens at the individual level, but also at the service/app level when we just make assumptions that “close is good enough” and the like.
Sadly, as good as power could be, we need to look more critically at it with each situation and range of equipment, not much different than HR, as something that is more variable than concrete.
I also feel a bit of that is on his “coach”, I wouldn’t expect Lionel to understand that Stages on Shimano cranks generally read low, especially when on a trainer. But David should know that and when his HR was low, asking what PM he is using (or using the Kickr instead (assuming it’s not a Gen1))
I think the stages was reading high. But yeah, the coach should know and validate these things.
Also, his Wahoo has a power meter, even if its not 100% accurate its another way of validation.
I just can’t believe he does not do more of his training outdoors with his race set up. He lives in Tucson most of the year. I am in Arizona and most of the pro’s around here do their training outdoors as you can cycle every month of the year here outdoor.
You don’t NEED power or HR or TSS to prescribe a good swim/run workout. Do workouts based on pace.
Warmup easy, 2 miles
6x1mi repeats at open half marathon pace
2’ easy recovery between each
1mi easy cool down
Something like that at least gives you intervals to target. To me it’s a lot more productive than “go run for 45 min at an RPE6”
Same with swimming. Do a 400-600yd warmup. Main set at varying intensity levels for 2000yd. A couple easy 100’s as a cool down, maybe mix in some breathing drills at the end. Instead of the bland “swim for 2500 yards”.
You are not wrong…
But to do that TR would need to ask people do do something to gauge running speed.
Many runners tend to over estimate their abilities (some under estimate)
I for example, train much worse than I usually race.
My training pace would suggest a much slowest runner… but here we are…
In any case…
TR would need people to run at certain capacity for certain time to come with a estimate of something resembling VO2Max… similar to the jackdaniels calculator…
That calculator is not perfect, but at least takes into consideration elevation and heat…
If they do that… then they can prescribe correct paces to everyone… say M, HM, Th, Tempo or 5k
Workouts with pace prescriptions don‘t work for me at all, unfortunately. In my region roads are either uphill or downhill.
I could run on the track, but otherwise I need something like RPE or HR (maybe someday a stryde, when running power are more established).
For most of my running I used a mixture of RPE and and breathing rate/deepness.
Of course that’s not perfect at all. If breath rate is counted with steps, it varies with cadence, and so on.
But power is not perfect either. On a hot day or fatigued, the „FTP“ would be much lower than on a fresh and perfectly fueled day.
When I hired a coach, he had everyone do a 5k time trial. And extrapolated your 10k/HM/M paces from that. And even your 70.3HM estimates and IM marathon pace estimates. Or “goal” race paces.
It’s not perfect, but it at least gives you some more structure and defined intervals. Which we know are really important because that’s the whole basis of the TR bike workouts.
my point is that although you HR drift on a wo with power… the power USUALLY stay consistent (for the most part). Unless you bonk… but thats a different story…
You can still do a WO based on HR where you didn’t bonk but your HR was higer than usual because of reasons… maybe the power was on target!
