Lower cadence - lower HR - lower speed

[earth]

I'm in I think the third year of riding my road bike. Recently I decided to change from low gear high cadence riding to the opposite.

I wanted to try this because as soon as I get the slightest head wind I don't have the power to push through it. So I thought try a higher gear, build some power in the legs. I have been trying this now for the last few weekend rides so I have not gone down this path for long but the most noticable difference was last week.

Normally my heart rate is 170+ and I can sustain this for hours. At 180+ I start to feel strained and I have seen my heart rate as high as 192. For a long time I thought my average HR is not much lower than my red line, this cannot be good, there's not much left in reserve.

Last week I did 50 miles using higher gears and found it hard to get my HR above 160. I did start to feel the strain at that as well. My average speed was no better either. This may have been because I had a head wind most of the way, but then the whole reason I tried a different approach was to beat the head wind!

Two things occur to me. 1. Higher gears and lower cadence has only slowed me down. 2. My heart rate was significantly lower.

I would like to keep the heart rate low at higher cadences and therefore have more in reserve. Can I get both? I feel this lower cadence stuff is just training me to go slower but then maybe I am training my aerobic zone instead of the anerobic I must have been in when doing high cadence and HR. Have I trained my body into aerobic mode?

 

[davidaw]

I do higher cadence with short cranks, and heart rate average is normally around the 125 to 130 mark, peaking over 150 for hills. I only average 12 to 13mph moving average though, so not racing.

 

[jimboalee]

Your power is generated by applying torque to a rotating crank. It is the result of Nm x rpm, divided by a constant.

A high speed with low torque will produce the same power as low speed and high torque.

Spinning is for riders who cannot, for many reasons, produce a lot of torque - usually weak muscles. They rely on high rpm to get the power.

The only way to increase speed is to generate more power, and it NEEDS torque.

Torque is the Newtons ( mass x gravity ) you push onto the pedal x the crank radius. Work to increase this.

The majority of cyclists ride along doing 'alternate leg press' over and over.

Your HR will increase when you try to pump blood to feed the muscles. It can be linked to power output and you have found your HR is lower at lower speed.

To achieve your desires of lower HR at all conditions, you will need to
1/ Capilarise the circulatory system.
2/ Improve your resiratory exchange.
3/ Increase your cardiac pumping volume.

It's a long, painful process.

 

[earth]

Your power is generated by applying torque to a rotating crank. It is the result of Nm x rpm, divided by a constant.

A high speed with low torque will produce the same power as low speed and high torque.

Spinning is for riders who cannot, for many reasons, produce a lot of torque - usually weak muscles. They rely on high rpm to get the power.

The only way to increase speed is to generate more power, and it NEEDS torque.

Torque is the Newtons ( mass x gravity ) you push onto the pedal x the crank radius. Work to increase this.

The majority of cyclists ride along doing 'alternate leg press' over and over.

Your HR will increase when you try to pump blood to feed the muscles. It can be linked to power output and you have found your HR is lower at lower speed.

To achieve your desires of lower HR at all conditions, you will need to
1/ Capilarise the circulatory system.
2/ Improve your resiratory exchange.
3/ Increase your cardiac pumping volume.

It's a long, painful process.

Yes of course its all easily explainable. Power is energy expended over time. Going faster requires more power. So high cadence lower gear is going to be the same as high gear low cadence. I suppose what I was getting at was I clearly do produce low torque due to not having the strength in my legs. I felt if I keep spinning in a low gear I will never build stronger legs. So I thought go for a lower gear and build up the strength in the legs. I suppose really I wanted to spin at a comparable rate but in a higher gear. Which of course requires more power and the HR would increase. So what I was really doing was putting in less effort.

Oh well just got to keep pedaling.

Doing the same things all the time is only going to work so far. I need variety I think. It all points to needing to improve the cardiovascular and respiritory system. After all this is what will supply the fuel for these mega muscules I'd like to develop.