These are indicators that your aerobic fitness may not be where it needs to be. Joe Friel discusses this as "decoupling" (he likes to see <5% for his fit athletes). You can test your aerobic fitness by doing steady state blocks on the trainer maintaining a constant HR and speed (or cadence/gear like I like to do).. below is a 1hr roller workout with 2 20min intervals at my tempo pace (132-142 which according to Joe Friel is my Z3 into Z4... in theory).
the top line is my HR, the blue center line is speed, and the green bottom line is my cadence. The first interval has a bit of ramp which is expected in HR. The second interval is more constant as I had no ramp up. The Pa:HR value indicates your Pace per HR coupling factor... you can see my Interval #2 is -.41 very low... Even better is to look at both intervals by computing the PaHR for the combined session....
you do this by the following....
basically what you are doing is looking at the percent change between Interval #1 and #2 using your average-pace and average-heart rate for both.... if you come up with <5% you are good to go.....in my case it is 4.4%...
Training Peaks will do this for you, but if you just capture your average pace (speed) and HR you can do it yourself.
4 comments:
Thanks, Bird. The bottom line is our training time is precious. This test proves we are/are not aerobically fit. Results allow us to use our time proficiently. Teenie, I and Giselle are onto the next thing: Muscular Endurance and Strength. We are aerobically fit, no wasting anymore time on that....only maintaining it. We are now getting stronger. At camp you can judge with Teenie and I if that is working?? G is just making the transition at/after CAMP>
Good stuff Bird. From a multi-sport perspective, you are forced to use Pa:HR, rather than Pw:HR (power to heart rate ratio) since there are no power-meters (yet) for running or swimming. If you don't have access to WKO+ (which calculates this for you) you can use the formulas you describe substituting run pace (min per mile) or swim pace (min per 100 yds or meters).
Awesome info! Glad I teach PHYSICS! HA!
The ride Randall had me do to determine if I needed more aerobic training time was this: after warming, ride at 2 hours at a steady heart rate in zone 2. My zone 2 is 136-150 bpm, so I settled around 145, which is a very comfortable effort level of riding, and being zone 2 it should be. The test determined that I had very little fall off in power over the 2 hours, BUT surprisingly it was a much harder workout than I ever imagined! Constantly pedalling and trying to keep my heart rate UP especially on the descents was tough. My hip stabilizers were screaming! I felt more tired after this ride than after a 4+ hour UWBL ride. Without the purely objective power feedback, I would have thought that I needed a whole lot more aerobic training, but what I felt was a lack of muscle endurance and strength. So now I can use my limited training hours working on what I need. Power meters aren't just about seeing how hard you can ride, they help you train smart.
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