brick94513-GoGoGo Mentor Group - Closed For Now! (Page 107)

shmeeg - 2010-12-10 12:17 PM



There's no way that's right.  Your heart would explode at that point.  What are you using to measure HR?  I know it's not an accurate method, but there's some value in the fact that the 220-age method chose that # as a starting point

shmeeg - 2010-12-10 12:30 PM

Yeah, I agree it's not accurate, but don't you think there's some merit to the #220?  I obviously have no scientific backing, that just seems abnormally high.  Doesn't necessarily mean it's inaccurate per se, just seems scary high to me.  My max is...183 I think, but I couldn't imagine running hard enough to get my HR up into the 220s.  Have you done any other sort of testing since the stress test and trained based of the HR zone results?

shmeeg - 2010-12-10 12:50 PM

Hm, well I guess if you're still tickin off the miles as fast as you do, it's ok!

dhopman - 2010-12-12 7:56 PMI thought my HR was high. My average on long runs tends to be around 156. I'm sure I could get it to spike up close to 200 but I'm not training to be a sprinter.

I know it's not as fun but on the spin bike or trainer, I'd rather do long sustained hard efforts (5 minutes or so) rather than SUPER HARD 30 second sprints. I guess it depends on what you're training for, but I doubt there are many people who finish a HIM or IM wishing they had done more sprint work.

shmeeg - 2010-12-12 11:25 PM

Actually the short hard stuff helps raise V02max, which in turn will help raise your FTP. And the guys I beat at Superfrog will be wishing they did more speedwork ;-)

brick94513 - 2010-12-13 11:43 AM

Guys, Please, Please, Please, if you take one thing away from this mentor group, let it be the irrelevance of maximum heart rate in endurance training.  In addition, the MHR = 220 - Age calculation, is a very poor estimator.  Stastically speaking, its reliability is only 0.51 (0.95 is considered good).  In my opinion, the only reason this calculation remains is due to its simplistity for the lay person.   At your level of training, you need to be more sophisticated!

The point of importance is lactate threshold: the point at which your body switches from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism.  Being endurace athletes, we need to be more concerned about whether we are above or below our individual lactate threshold.  How far above my LT or how close to my max heart rate I am is meaningless.  What is important is to realize that I'm now anaerobic and need to slow down knowing that I can only sustain this effort for about an hour.

Here is another important point to consider.  Taken from Joe Friel, "The interesting thing about LT, and what makes using max heart rate an ineffective reference point for your zones, is that it can vary widely as a percent of max - anywhere from around 70 - 90 percent.  Generally, the more fit the athlete, the higher the LT heart rate is as a percent of mx." 

Finally, remember there are numerous factors that can affect heart rate and skew your testing results:  daily variation, body temperature, gravity (elevation), position (bike, run, swim), heat, humidity, equipment, technique, caffeine, drugs (anticongestants), emotion, cadence, time of day, and illness....   Just about everything!

If you want to train by heart rate, I highly recommend reading Joe Friel's Total Heart Rate Training.

croixfan - 2010-12-14 5:51 PM 14 days in to the month and 14 days with workouts.  Decided that I wanted to hit every day this month.  Still have a bike ride to go this PM.  Stopped at the pool after work.  I've been really focusing on form and drills taking it nice and easy.  Tonight I decided to do an easy, relaxed 1000m.  100 m splits were 3:13, 3:49, 4:13, 4:11, 4:28, 4:33, 4:20, 3:52, 3:22, 2:44 (1:26 and 1:18 for the final 50 splits).  While the overall time is not very impressive, it was "easy" as I relaxed the entire way.  For the last three I decided to turn it up just a bit.  On the last one I was going about 90%.  It's kind of cool to actually feel like you are moving when swimming.  I've got 3 new TI DVD's in the mail that I'll be watching.  Hopefully they'll help me to take it to the next level.

Meulen - 2010-12-17 6:15 AM Got myself a ruptured ear drum this week! I've got a looooong history of horrible luck around xmas time. This will throw a wrench in things!

brick94513 - 2010-12-20 11:16 AM

Brian, it all depends on the pain.  Mine were never really infected and didn't affect my equilibrium.  I just used earplugs (wax ones work good) and got back in the water right away much to my doctor's chagrin.