Heart zone training- vo2 testing

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Pedro2015

Active Member
Location
Liverpool
Anybody into heart zone training? If so which method did you use to calculate you max heart rate and then your zones.

Has anyone had there v02 max measured and applied this to the various methods of obtaining max heart rate to see which is more accurate?
 

Rob3rt

Man or Moose!
Location
Manchester
Max HR should be measured, not calculated.
 

screenman

Legendary Member
In a very unpleasant way, mine or should I say some of mine were done with Peter Read pushing me and recording performance.
 

Rob3rt

Man or Moose!
Location
Manchester
In what way?

There are various methods, ultimately it doesn't matter all that much which one since the result will be the same/similar and absolute accuracy is not that important. As such just do a Google search and pick a method.

Or, do some evidence based guess work, i.e. take the highest value you have seen to date and use that, until you see a higher value, then use that and so on...
 

gam001

Über Member
I know somebody who does regular RAMP tests and uses that to get his max HR (as well as testing his wattage).
After a brief warm up on a turbo, he starts off at an easy endurance pace and then ramps his power up by 20w every 1 minute (or some other incremental increase if you haven't got power to work with), and continues this until he can no longer keep the power up (usually takes him around 15 mins to build to this point), and then warms down gradually for 20 mins.
He takes the max observed HR and adds 3bpm to estimate his theoretical absolute max. (Not sure why 3bpm exactly, apart from it being a "little more, but not a lot".)
For his HR zones, he applies the following %s to his theoretical absolute max HR...

Recovery - under 65%
Endurance - 65% - 77%
Tempo - 77% - 87%
LT - 87-92%

Not sure how valid this is, I'm sure it has it's pros and cons, but it does seem to tally nicely with my HR (I see in zones I set via power).

Anyway, hope it may be of some use to you :thumbsup:

Cheers, Gaz

EDIT - I forgot to mention that these zones seemed quite wide to me, eg around 20bpm for me for endurance and tempo, so you may want to aim for somewhere in the middle, or even split the wide bands into a lower and an upper section.
 
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gam001

Über Member
Nearly workable, but when he can go no more he sprints flat out and more.
Yeah, he told me he used to do that :wacko:, but then felt it was a little dangerous to try and max it out (given it wasn't for a stage win in the TdF ^_^), so thought it best not to do the sprint bit and just to add 3bpm on.
Also, he didn't think it needed to be *too* accurate, as HR fluctuates by a few bpp, depending on time of day, current fitness, biorhythms, hydration, illness, etc...
The important thing to him was having a consistent testing method that gave a pretty good idea to within a few bpm.
Kudos to you if you do the sprint at the end :heat: :thumbsup:
 

screenman

Legendary Member
Used to do the sprint bit, not nowadays though.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
On the recent Revolution highlights programme one of the riders had a heart rate monitor on with a wireless connection so we could see his heart rate. He was doing over 200 bpm at one point!

The most I ever got to was 197 bpm into a headwind on a very steep climb, so I reckon my max was about 200 bpm at that time. I imagine that I wouldn't be able to safely get to much more than about 175 bpm now. I am reluctant to push hard enough to find out because my heart rhythm goes funny, and I have spent enough time in hospitals over the past few years!
 

HeroesFitness

Active Member
Location
Norwich
I always use the talk test with my clients and then go on to find MAX VO2 that way, look it up, plenty or research done on it, like many tests they are not 100% accurate though
 

poynedexter

Well-Known Member
Anybody into heart zone training? If so which method did you use to calculate you max heart rate and then your zones.

Has anyone had there v02 max measured and applied this to the various methods of obtaining max heart rate to see which is more accurate?

i got my vo2 testing done last week.

i have my aerobic anerobic thresholds to work on now. the system apparently gives an accurate measure and matches blood lactate testing very well. TBH my anerobic threshold was lower than i imagined but the numbers are only useful in terms of an improvement goal.

on a max measured HR of 185
vo2 max was 58.4 ml/kg/min
aerobic threshold was 151 hr
anerobic threshold was 158 hr
the mets score was 16.5

power wise im not sure as the watt bike numbers didnt appear on the result sheet, but rose from 100 W to about 340 ish over the test duration of 23 mins.

i would say however that trying to breathe with the mask on was an experience!
 

gam001

Über Member
i got my vo2 testing done last week.

i have my aerobic anerobic thresholds to work on now. the system apparently gives an accurate measure and matches blood lactate testing very well. TBH my anerobic threshold was lower than i imagined but the numbers are only useful in terms of an improvement goal.

on a max measured HR of 185
vo2 max was 58.4 ml/kg/min
aerobic threshold was 151 hr
anerobic threshold was 158 hr
the mets score was 16.5

power wise im not sure as the watt bike numbers didnt appear on the result sheet, but rose from 100 W to about 340 ish over the test duration of 23 mins.

i would say however that trying to breathe with the mask on was an experience!

Very interesting ^_^

Out of curiosity, what is the difference between "aerobic threshold" and "anaerobic threshold"? (Up until now, I thought they were pretty much the same thing, when you tip over from being able to clear your lactic acid faster than you are producing it, to a point where you are producing faster than you can clear it...maybe the bit between, where you are clearing it just as fast as you are producing it, is less of a knife edge than I thought it was??)

Also, what's the "mets score"?

Does liking all of this techy stuff make me a nerd? (I think I already know the answer to this... :whistle:)

Cheers, Gaz :thumbsup:
 
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