Turbo trainer question

[AlanW]

but I've found the speedo to be much more useful than the HRM, which surprised me.

Not as much as it surprises me to be honest!!

At the risk of starting yet another pointless internet debate, but what has speed got to do with it???

How can you structure a training programme based on speed alone??? All depends what gear and what cadence your doing?

Please explain to me how you can tell when you are in the "fat burning" zone, (or any other specific zone for that matter) by what speed you are doing?

Sorry if I appear to come across as being blunt you understand, but what a load of old cobblers!!

The body is exactly the same a engine, and as such has to be monitored exactly the same.

Examples, if you want to conserve fuel in a car what single piece of equipment do you monitor? The rev counter.

If you want to extract the best performance from your engine, what do you monitor? The rev counter again.

Drive your car in second gear at lets say 40 mph, how many revs is the engine doing? Most likely at the red line of its recommended performance scale. You are simply burning fuel for the sake of it, there is no gain.

Now drive your car at the same speed, but this time in top gear, now many revs are you now doing? Most likely at the bottom end of the engine performance. Not only are you now saving fuel but also you have the ability to increase the output of the engine by increasing the revs.

Your body is the same, speed is not relevant at all.

Another example, you are riding a time trial, your heart rate is at 90% of your maximum and you are only doing 15mph. Well sorry but that's it, there is no more that you can do. You have reached you maximum output, given the road and head wind conditions that might be against you. But say that you reach the turn and the wind is now behind you. You are now going at 30+mph and really flying, but your heart rate is now only doing 70% of its maximum? OK you are doing 30+mph but you are not maximising your potential output are you.

Further more, how do you monitor how fit you are getting?

The general rule is that your resting pulse lowers, but this is not an accurate check. By far the best is to measure how many beats you drop in a given time from the same point of excursion. The more you drop the fitter you are getting.

How can you gauge that with speed?

Looking at the heart rate is the single most valuable thing you can do, it tells no lies. You heart rate will let you know when you have a pending illness, up to 24 hours before it hits you.

Listen to your heart, its your very own rev counter!

 

[stabit]

Wow, I didn't expect my first post to have such a response... let's see how my second post goes

I'm not suggesting that a HRM us not a useful tool for using on the turbo - as I said, I did it that way for the last 2 winters, and it worked. It is important to have some method of focusing your workout, otherwise you just end up getting bored quite quickly, so a HRM is definitely better than nothing. All I am saying is that a HRM is not the only successful way to train on the turbo as stated in the previous post - in fact I don't even think it is the most successful (a power meter would have to win that award), but that's another discussion entirely. As I also said, I agree with the other points made by AlanW, anyone new to training indoors would do well to read them carefully.

OK, I'll try to expand on my reasoning behind now preferring the speedo rather than the HRM, and remember, I've tried both. The way I see it, speed is a cheap proxy for power, and power trumps HR every time. I have an old bike permanently attached to the turbo, so no worries about setting it up the same every time - I check tyre pressure from time to time, but it rarely needs topping up. My turbo has progressive resistance, so it gets harder the faster you go (a bit like being on the road), so 20mph is 20mph, regardless of gear/cadence.

I'm mostly interested in doing short sharp sessions on the turbo - best 'bang for buck' - so more time efficient. I know I said I enjoy riding the turbo, but I'd still rather do as little as possible to achieve the desired results Most of my sessions are 2 x 20 intervals done at 'threshold', which based on my HR zones were in the region of 85%-92%. Using the speedo, I found out (by trial and error) what speed I could maintain for the 20 mins, and that became my benchmark. My HR is irrelevent, it changes so much day to day, time of day, temp etc etc that it was at best a vague measure anyway. The true measure of any improvement (or loss) in fitness is seeing the speed at which I can maintain for the interval increase (or decrease). So far it's increasing which can only be a good sign

To recap, I'm just offering an alternative point of view that HRMs are handy and useful, but they are not the only (or even best) way to successfully train indoors IMO. Take it or leave it. It doesn't matter if either one of us is right or wrong, Aren't we just sharing info so people can decide for themselves. I really don't see the need to resort to calling other people opinions 'a load of old cobblers'

 

[Garz]

Alan, you can use speed to aid yourself training and it seems to work for him. I do agree with you however that other information such as the HRM as you put earlier would be a far better indicator and tool.

 

[Rip Van]

When you're training for any endurance sport, if you're honest with yourself and it feels hard, then it is hard. Although I use HRM's, speedos & cadence you can still fool yourself with these "tools", that you're training harder than the reality. You've got to push yourself hard in training if you want better results.