8 Comments

1. 

   Pat Williams on October 10, 2011 at 11:09 am

   Hello,

   Enjoyed the podcast. I heard you mention heart rate monitors as a possible measuring device for this ride if you did not have a way to measure your wattage, average speed, distance traveled etc. I thought about heart rate monitors and recovery times over a set time period i.e one minute and two minute recoveries for each participant. Maybe average heart rate over a period of time i.e. 5 minute and 3 minute efforts. Any other thoughts on use of heart rate monitors in this format?

   Thanks,

   Pat

2. 

   Cameron Chinatti on October 11, 2011 at 9:11 am

   Hello again Mr. Williams!

   Well, this is a tough question, because in many ways this is akin to the whole chicken vs the egg dichotomy. While heart rate is a fabulous indicator of your bodies RESPONSE to the work, it doesn’t represent the work itself. Additionally, heart rate monitoring is only as good as your experience with tracking it over time. So, best case scenario your entire group has done some semblance of Fuctional Threshold Heart Rate testing and when you say, “keep your HR between 70-75% of your FTHR,” they know what you’re talking about . Even then, comparing against each other becomes tricky and inevitably leads to, “Na-nanny-boo-boo my heart rate is higher than yours!” … Which we definitely don’t want. This is why without Power I often refer to self-questioning and other more subjective measures.

   So, in a perfect system environment (using the example above) I might state the following:

   “So assuming you were able to maintain 70-75% of your FTHR for that last segment I want you to discuss how that effort felt with your teammates. Did your heart rate response correlate to how you typically feel at that level of effort? Did it feel more uncomfortable than normal? …etc. Whom ever feels the most “on point” today given that first experience gets to be the specialist…”

   Please keep in mind this is VERY, VERY subjective. But then again, aside from being able to measure your direct efforts ( via wattage ) everything is. As a result, I prefer to go more the games and experiential preferences route, when it comes to cycles without direct power measurement.

   Sorry, probably not the answer you were looking for, but a fantastic question nonetheless!

3. 

   Pat Williams on October 11, 2011 at 2:15 pm

   Hello,

   Thanks for the response. We have done threshold testing but I think it would be a challenge to use the monitors in that format and you are right there is a certain amount of comparing going on. I have done some hill repeat rides where we looked at recovery efforts for one and two minute increments, however, that was done more for exploratory purposes for individuals and how their body responded as class progressed. I have tried to keep the comparison issue out of class but human nature wants to know where you stack up with the competition. Do you have any information concerning benchmark standards for recovery time? I realize there are many variables i.e. intensity, amount of time, etc.

   Thanks,

   Pat

4. 

   Cameron Chinatti on October 12, 2011 at 4:17 pm

   Hey Pat… again FANTASTIC question! I’ve actually gotten quite a few inquiries lately regarding the difference between resting HR and recovery HR. I personally believe there is a ton of value in recovery HR yet it is underutilized in the great indoors. I’m working on a few different article/blog ideas and I’d really like to explore this one further. It would be great to pull Tom into this as well since I know that Heart Zones also values this metric. In terms of benchmarks… it’s across the board. I know of one University that is pursuing the correlation between recovery hr and the risk of cardiovascular event, but it has been largely ignored. This sounds like an interesting podcast to me… Hmmmm…

5. 

   Pat Williams on October 12, 2011 at 8:53 pm

   Hello Cameron,

   Please let me know if you find out any additional information pertaining to recovery heart rates. It does sound like a good podcast.

   Pat

6. 

   Chuck Cali on October 13, 2011 at 4:12 pm

   Pat & Cameron,

   Great discussion. What comes through is that most of us are still stuck teaching on bikes with no measurement capability at all. Indoor cycling 1.0. So we struggle with how to implement such interesting training when we teach on metric less equipment.

   We just don’t know how long it will take studios and larger facilities to replace their indoor cycles with bikes like the Freemotion S11.9, SchwinnAC, and Keiser M3. But I think we can all agree, it will be some time.

   Until that time however, what we the instructors can do is take advantage of metrics we can get into the hands of our classes. HEART RATE MONITORS. Cameron is right, Heart Zones and sister company ZONING are very interested in recovery heart rate. Both Cycling Fusion and ZONING have heart rate training programs that go from rank beginner to expert cyclist. We all may not be able to couple heart rate with power (the ideal) but heart rate monitors are much easier to acquire than bikes with power. And, for most of our classes, heart rate is plenty.

   Let us face facts, talking about recovery heart rate to a room full of people not wearing monitors is not any more productive than talking about power on bikes with no power meters.

   Do I have skin in the heart rate monitor market. Sure, but I was using them long before I was selling them. Sally Edwards CEO and founder of Heart Zones USA, was endurance training with heart rate when most endurance athletes were still measuring 1:1 volume of training.

   Bottom line, if we want change to take place we have be leaders. We need to educate to the point where our students are asking for these measurements. If we don’t wear, use and talk about heart rate training, power training or standardized effort management, we will continue to only be semi-effective providing mindless exercise to those who don’t even know they want more.

   Yes Cameron recovery heart rate will make an interesting podcast. It’s all about the recovery.

   Wonder what we will be discussing when we are all teaching on bikes with power.

7. 

   Amy Macgowan on October 13, 2011 at 9:10 pm

   When we all have bikes with power (when when when!!!!) THEN we can talk about flying them to the moon with all the power we are generating….just kidding. But, I too, am looking forward to a podcast about recovery HR. Common sense just tells me it is a great indicator of true fitness. And wouldn’t it be cool if there is a link (or non-link as the case may be) to the correlation with cardiovascular events? That may even sell in the medical and re-hab community. Yahoo! I also would love to see my class competing on how fast their HR’s drop in recovery vs. how high they can get them in effort. Hmmmmm….perhaps I can somehow incorporate that into my Sat class now that they are all migrating back inside to me 🙂

8. 

   Cameron Chinatti on November 8, 2011 at 9:32 am

   Thanks Amy and Chuck! Amy, I love the idea of a recovery competition!! If class participants started getting really competitive over the recovery metric, I’d be pleased as punch 😉 it would be cool to do a little round-table discussion, podcast style regarding recovery HR…. Hmmmm…

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