Do you guys follow your heart rate when training? I've had my heart rate monitor with me this week when I've gone cross country skiing and my average heart rate for two hours has been a bit over 170. I think my max heart rate is around 205-210 and base heart rate around 50. Last summer I cycled for about 20 hours straight and during that my average heart rate was around 150. I think most endurance athletes recommend something like 120, but it obviously depends on the person. I've heard high heart rate training might lead to overtraining and overall not being as effective as lower bpm training. Any truth to this? I've never really had problems recovering and I felt great even after that 20 hour cycling competition.
i've been training with a heart rate monitor for a couple years. There are generally four zones, each with different ranges of your maximum heart rate and effects on your physiology. Zone 1 (50-60% of max hr) - considered the 'base' heart rate, this zone is the easiest, and happens when just walking, jogging, riding easily. It's an aerobic zone, which means you are using your slow twitch muscles and cardiovascular system mainly. Lots of cyclists (including myself) and other endurance athletes do lots and lots of 'base' training where you maintain between zone 1 and 2 to help build a strong cardiovascular 'base.' Zone 2 (60-70% of max hr) - almost the same as zone 1 except you burn calories faster because of your faster HR. Zone 3 (70-90% of max hr) - where you start crossing into the anaerobic zones - relying more on the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver. Somewhere in this zone is your Lactate Threshold (LT), which is the specific point where your body is using up your glycogen faster than it can be produced. You'll know you reach your LT when you feel the burn, and it will keep getting more intense until... Zone 4 (90%+ of max hr) - theoretically, when you reach 100% of your max HR, you are completely anaerobic, ie you aren't using oxygen when under this effort. Of course, you can't really maintain this kind of effort for very long since you need to breathe. When you overtrain, you are training at a greater pace/volume than your body can handle and recover. Training in higher zones means you're using up glycogen stores which need to be replaced, but doesn't necessarily mean than you will start overtraining. I've overtrained by doing 30+ hours/week of purely zone 1 and 2 - even though they are lower heart rates, my body wasn't able to adapt/recover with the volume of my training, so I had to back off a little bit. On the other hand, training with intensity (Zones 3&4) can also lead to overtraining if you push yourself consistently without regard to recovery. You make performance gains when you are recovering, so just make sure you plan recovery days into your training. It can just be complete rest day or an easy spin/workout. also, don't confuse overtraining with just being tired. Heart rate monitors are good for detecting when you need to take a break - when you have an elevated resting heart rate, or when your heart rate is higher than normal for a certain effort (ie you're in zone 3 when your perceived effort is more zone 1). If you're tired you'll still be able to maintain training efforts with no elevated change in heart rate.
