Calories and Calories....

[lulubel]

You can't base calorie burn on HR

Pick a number and stick with it (e.g. 500 kcal/hour)

A HRM is better than a guess.

(I know you also said power meter, but in the absense of a power meter a HRM is still better than a guess.)

 

[amaferanga]

A HRM is better than a guess.

(I know you also said power meter, but in the absense of a power meter a HRM is still better than a guess.)

I don't think it is. You just have to look at how some HRMs massively overestimate while others massively underestimate to realise that guessing at a ballpark figure is better.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

dave_r, your max heart rate is subjective too. 220-age is another rough guess. You can work it out though by repeated testing.

As you get older two things happen, your resting pulse rises and your max falls, double whammy to age groupers.

In my twenty's I had a resting hr in the upper 20's lower 30's and a max in the 200's now its low 40's and 164, I'm 51.

I can get my max by running hill repeats, its safer than doing this on a bike. You can use a turbo trainer too.

When you are maxed out you start to feel a tingling in your fingers, arms and scalp, your vision starts to go. It might be spotty or tunnel. Beyond that you start to keel over. I've tried it a few times. If your ticker is ok you'll survive, you can't oxygen deplete yourself to death its like strangling yourself you can't do it. Thats your true max, your body can't take anymore.
You can't repeat this two days in a row and get reliable results, it takes a couple of days to get things cleared out. In the experiments I have done, I have found alcohol improves the repeats if you do them two days in a row, I'm talking half a pint not a skin full. I don' t know exactly why, may be blood vessel dilation, carbs etc.

Arsen gere thanks for the post, very interesting and informative. I know about the 220 - your age and the other calculations we can find, when it first came out most of us used it and got gains, these days it seems to pitch my max too low. What I will normally do is use the heart monitor on a Sunday ride and go hard on the steeper hills , I'll see what max heart rate I get and use that. Having had angina three years ago I wouldn't take the heart rate to the extreme you describe, too big a danger of keeling over.

 

[Tyres23]

So the last post may explain why I'm always bloody starving when I get up the next day after a longer ride!!!