TMBRA - Rider Board

[Anonymous]

Hello Doc! I have 2 questions for you. I'm reading about training to structure my rides a little bit. I've also gotten a HRM. Basic stats: 29yo, 6'1, 172lbs.

Question 1: HR Max. Early season after weeks without riding / endurance exercise, my heart rate goes frequently into the 180s and I feel no particular discomfort. Then as I ride and accumulate miles, the same level of perceived effort pushes the heart only into the 160s. This is good, but here is my challenge: it becomes nearly impossible to get the heart to beat into the 180s at this point. Even on the steepest hill giving my full effort, or in all-systems-go 3 minute intervals, I can barely hit 182 as the absolute maximum intensity. At this point, I am totally out of breath, legs feeling "burned". How would you recommend I adapt my training to remove the "out of breath" limitation? I guess more intervals or stength work could solve the leg problem.

Question 2: Training plan. Somewhat related to question 1. I read that one should start accumulating long distances at low intensity for several weeks or months, before working intensity. Can both be worked at the same time? Part of the challenge is that I have a busy work schedule, and therefore, even doing 2h rides is a challenge (given time to prepare, shower coming back etc). Do you believe intervals will do me any good if I do not have the distance base?

Thanks much!
Nick

[The Bike Doc]

Nick:

Question number one: Your max heart rate sounds like it is around the 182 mark base on how high you can get it with a total all out effort leaving nothing on the saddle when you are done. When you are well trained (but not over trained) you will find that your perceived effort will be at a lower heart rate than when you were poorly conditioned which you describe well in your history. Now, if you are over trained and have not taken sufficient rest and recovery time you will find your perceived effort will be a much higher heart rate but you will not be able to approach your max heart rate. Additionally, you will find your morning resting heart rate climbing.

Question number two: As you train you can improve your ability to sustain a higher level of intensity and tolerate higher levels of lactate. This is what is often referred to as training your lactate threshold. Intervals are part of the training to push your lactate threshold higher. However, you do need a good base to build on. That is where your long easy paced rides come in. Try to schedule your long easy rides on days where you will have time such as weekends or early in the morning on a work day before the heat builds and the sun is still snoozing. One of the tricks I did when I was racing was using my bike to commute. I would deliberately get up earlier than usual and take a long route to work at an easy pace for my long distance base building. A couple a times a week I would hammer the shorter distance to work doing intervals on the hills. The intereval days were followed by easy ride days.

Keep on pedalling!

Thanks,
_________________
Paul K. Nolan, MD
AKA: The Bike Doc

[Anonymous]

Thanks Doc! (do you go by Doc or Paul?)

On the Max HR topic, what seemed strange to me was a decreased HR Max value in a trained state (182 lately), vs. untrained (where I've seen up to 194 before). I thought I would at least be able to sustain the untrained "throughput" by training more (I also saw on Lance's site that his HR Max shows 201, which also suggests that HR Max increases as one's condition gets better). Overtraining could be the reason, although I'm only doing 4-6hrs a week right now.

Nick

[The Bike Doc]