The systemic use of Heart Rate to monitor endurance training began at the end of the eighties. The first Heart rate Monitor, the famous sport tester was used by Moser during is hour record.
In the nineties, the Finnish Company (POLAR) developed a lot of models affordable for a large public. Now the Heart Rate Monitor is one of the essential tool for modern riders.
The follow up of HR during training which began after the World War 2, leads physiologists to find the famous threshold. This thresold concept described the intensity where the body is in debt of oxygen => The effort is limited.
This concept is well described by your perception when you perform a ramp test on your trainer.
With the threshold concept and with the only physiological measure on the bike (HR), many trainers began to build training plan with Heart Rate as guideline.
At this time, most of these trainers forgot the empiric training based on effort perception and feelings to speak only about beats per minute.
Nowadays, with the feedback collected during these 20 years, we can say that the best way to train in cycling is to train with Power, perception and HR.
If it’s not possible for you to buy a powermeter then use HR with Perception.
Your body is the most accurate training tool so listen to it!
How to train with Heart Rate ?
First, your need to define your training zones.
To define these zones, you need to know your Resting Heart Rate and your Max Heart Rate and then use TWP calculator.
When you have your training zones, let’s go to discover the perception associated with each zone.
You will notice that each Zone is described with a specific perception.
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Intensity
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Zone
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Perception
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LOW
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1
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No pain
Fatigue after 3-4 h
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2
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No pain
Easy to speak
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MEDIUM
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3
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First muscular pain
Difficulty to carry out a long conversation
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4
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Progressive increase of muscular pain
Difficulty to carry out a conversation
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HIGH
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5
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Fast increase of muscular pain
Impossible to carry out a conversation
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6
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Impossible to speak
Exhaustion after effort + overbreathing
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The goal for you now during your next training block will be to identify each zone with your own perception.
Once this goal achieved you’ll be able to understand better your body and to discover why to focus only HR is not the good way for training; it’s just one of the key of well training.
Don’t forget that many factors influence your heart rate: Effort level, Stress, lack of recovery, caffeine, …