How to improve HR recovery time?

[LBTC]

Recently I had my lactic balance point tested and now I know to do 80% of my training below 150bpm, and 20% at or above that. Very cool. So I'm really paying attention to my heartrate, and to DH's, as he's had the same thing done. What we've noticed is that after an effort that raises the heartrate - an interval or hill or whatever, his HR comes back down much faster than mine. I know that my year+ of not being able to exercise vigorously is playing a part here and that with further training it will improve.

What I really want to know is: what particular drills will help improve the speed of my HR recovery faster?

short intervals with full recovery in between?
short intervals with incomplete recovery?
long intervals with full recovery?
long intervals with incomplete recovery?

I want to know how best to focus my training for the next couple of months to prep for a metric century ride where I don't want to be a slug and still want to finish without being completely spent; and for an endurance mountain bike event with a partner, and for time trials, and for fun.

HR training specialists and anyone in the know - help!

Thank you so much! Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

[kelownagirl]

I have Joe Friel's Heart Rate Training book. Tomorrow, when my eyes are rested, I'll skim thru and see if I can find anything for you. :)

[Wahine]

LBTC - Changes in HR are an effect of overall efficiency of the heart to beat in such a way that it pumps more blood per beat. HR (including recovery time) is mostly effected by overall training and is not usually trained using intervals. Intervals are meant to train you body to deal with energy demands and produce power, HR change is a bi-product of that. So I think, and I may be wrong, that in terms of what happens physiologically, as long as you train with sufficient (that means at least a zone 1) your HR reco time will adapt for the better.

Having said that, my theory is (note I said theory, the following has no basis in any research I'm aware of or facts of any sort) that seeing as your HR is a muscle and any muscle can be trained and the best way to train the muscle is to get it to do the thing you want it to do.... I would vote for higher intensity, short duration with enough rest to recover into your Zone 1 heart rate in between.

[LBTC]

Thanks, Wahine. I think that makes sense, too. So, tomorrow I'll be riding with a friend - no idea what her pace/fitness is actually like, especially on the road bike. My intention is to keep a fairly low HR, but there will be some hills, so I"ll treat those as my intervals, and make sure I do full recovery after each effort. And next time we do one of the interval DVD's, I'll make sure I do full recovery, even if it means missing some of the intervals....eventually I won't miss any, right? :) Hopefully, one day, I can ride beside DH without it killing him that I'm going so slow, and killing me trying to keep up with him! heh.

KG - if you find something in the book, please let me know. :o

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

[Funhog]

Hey Butterfly (i love your sign off)!

Think of the concept of specificity. The event you're training for, a metric century, is a long distance at an aerobic, steady state intensity. Short, high intensity intervals won't be as helpful for this particular event. They can help though, for mountain biking and for a TT.

If you were out of commission for a year, you are still building yourself back up. I would recommend a good base building program. This strengthens the heart and works on teaching your body to prefer fat as its fuel source. A stronger, more aerobically fit heart will recover faster (but it will still need to be challenged to learn to recover from higher intensity efforts). Maybe you've already been doing your base building, and that's awesome. If so, then it's time to train your threshold, knowing that it might take you a year or two to be back where you were prior to your time off (I don't know your history as I'm new here so there might be more to it than I am aware of).

By training your threshold through long intervals, you can actually raise your LT. That will be a very beneficial thing for your century!

Start with 10 minute intervals at around LT (you can do a 20-min field test to guestimate it). 2-3 sets. 2X per week (like Mon/Thur). Gradually increase the length to 15, then 20, then 30-min. You can do these outside - using hills about that length as your threshold, or pacing with someone else (as long as they realize you need to recover in between sets). Recovery only needs to be about 5 minutes or so.

The rest of the week is spent at aerobic zones, with at least one long ride per week (2 hrs, building to 4 or 5).

Doesn't mean higher intensity intervals won't be good for you, especially if the long ride you plan on doing has a lot of steep climbs (but you should be fit enough so that you don't hit anaerobic intensities on these climbs anyway). They can help with performance, and power if you want/need that, or just or the feel-good occasional adrenaline rush that HIT (high intensity training) gives you. Once per 2 weeks or so. But just know they aren't specific to that event (they're more for faster races, crits, mountain biking, etc). If the longer event comes first, focus on the longer TH intervals. Then when that's complete, start adding some shorter, higher intensity intervals for the next events.

Let me know if you want some info on field testing your LT. (unless you've had it tested).

[Funhog]

Oh yeah, I also meant to give you some tips on getting your HR to recover quicker.

Obviously, a stronger, more aerobically fit heart will be the most important aspect in a faster recovery HR, but you have some tools at your disposal to help it out. I actually call this "your tool box" and teach my Spin students how to have more control over their HR this way. I use it all the time in my outdoor riding.

Your parasympathetic nervous system is the system that slows down the HR. Some things you can do to activate it are the following (and all these things work together):
- breathe through your nose. After a real high intensity effort, it might take 20-30 seconds before you can do this, but try as soon as you can to incorporate nose breathing.
- extend your exhale. After a long inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth (or nose, but when you're still breathing hard, it will be the mouth most likely), and make it last longer than the inhale, pushing the belly button back towards the spine. You actually decrease the intra-abdominal pressure, so that on your next inhale, you'll draw in more air (and O2), and expel more CO2 on each exhale. It's the CO2 build-up following an anaerobic effort that makes you breathe harder and your heart beat faster anyway (to get ride of it), so the more you can help it's removal, the quicker your HR will fall.
- belly breathe. As you inhale, let your belly expand, pushing your belly button away from you. Minimize how much your chest and shoulders raise when you inhale (thats the "fight or flight" mechanism we all seem to dive into when we breathe hard, but it doesn't serve us well). This allows the lower lobes of your lungs to expand and to fill up with O2 first, which increases the O2 saturation of the blood leaving your lungs, which will be sent to your recovering muscles. Ah yes, that's what they need!
- your mind. A focused mind can help the HR drop. A distracted mind will keep it elevated longer.

All these will help your HR to fall much quicker. Elite endurance athletes use these for HR control, as do singers (especially opera singers) to bring in more O2. If you look at Tour de France riders from the side, their bellies are often distended (and no one can say they have any body fat;)). That's because the photo was taken while they were inhaling. There's some famous pictures of Miguel Indurain like this.

I also use this to control HR during an effort, for example, while I'm climbing and my HR is a little higher than I want it. All else being equal (steepness, cadence and gearing), I can usually drop it 1-3 beats just through focused breathing, which can mean staying below my LT or not.

When you do this, watch your heart rate monitor - it's a great biofeedback tool. These even work if you're just sitting around. Put your HRM on at home, and sit quietly and focus on these 4 elements for several minutes with your eyes closed. You should see a drop in your HR (provided there's not other things affecting it, like caffeine...)

Hope this helps!

[VeloVT]

OK, so I'm out of my league in this thread. But what I would be likely to do in your situation would be to build distance gradually, and include 1-2 hard tempo rides each week. Not sure what a tempo ride distance would be -- I've only used this strategy running. A tempo run, training for marathon distance, might be 6 miles, 8 tops. So a hard tempo ride? I would say between 10 and 20-25 miles -- so very short compared to the distance you're training for, but at a pace significantly faster than the rest of your training. I might run a tempo run :30-:45 seconds/mile faster than my easy training pace (I think technically it's supposed to be more, but I can't ever hold myself back that much on easy days :D). I really can't translate this to pace changes in riding but I think you know it when you feel it. It's not as hard as traditional "sprint" type intervals -- it's a pace you can hold for the entire workout distance, but one that is pretty far above "conversational" level, and you should feel pretty spent at the end (like you wouldn't want to do another "interval"). The idea is that you gradually train your cardiovascular system to be able to work at higher and higher sustained intensity.

Just an idea... good luck!

Just reread your original post. To clarify, I was thinking specifically of increasing speed in your century and decreasing your recovery time. For some of the other things it sounds like shorter harder intervals might be better?

But again, I'm totally outclassed in this thread so... :)

[Funhog]

OK, so I'm out of my league in this thread. But what I would be likely to do in your situation would be to build distance gradually, and include 1-2 hard tempo rides each week. Not sure what a tempo ride distance would be -- I've only used this strategy running. A tempo run, training for marathon distance, might be 6 miles, 8 tops. So a hard tempo ride? I would say between 10 and 20-25 miles -- so very short compared to the distance you're training for, but at a pace significantly faster than the rest of your training. I might run a tempo run :30-:45 seconds/mile faster than my easy training pace (I think technically it's supposed to be more, but I can't ever hold myself back that much on easy days :D). I really can't translate this to pace changes in riding but I think you know it when you feel it. It's not as hard as traditional "sprint" type intervals -- it's a pace you can hold for the entire workout distance, but one that is pretty far above "conversational" level, and you should feel pretty spent at the end (like you wouldn't want to do another "interval"). The idea is that you gradually train your cardiovascular system to be able to work at higher and higher sustained intensity.

Just an idea... good luck!

Just reread your original post. To clarify, I was thinking specifically of increasing speed in your century and decreasing your recovery time. For some of the other things it sounds like shorter harder intervals might be better?

But again, I'm totally outclassed in this thread so... :)

Not outclassed at all Liza! Some good stuff here.

Generally Tempo in cycling is considered high-end aerobic, about 90-93% of LT. You should still be able to talk, though a bit uncomfortably and very aware of breathing. Here is a good article (http://www.endurancefactor.com/article-zone.htm)on training zones and their descriptions. It's by Doug Bush, who bases these zones on Joe Friel's.

Yes there are some differences in some coaches philosophies (it's an art as well as a science) and zones will be described a few percentage points differently, but in general most are saying the same thing.

You're right, Butterfly should definitely include tempo workouts in her training. This would be outside of the threshold days.

[RoadRaven]

So LBTC... how goes the training for this?
Have you been able to formulate a plan and follow through? And if so, what are you trialling?

I continue to work on both my ability to work at my LT at higher power outputs, and to try and increase my ability to recover from short power bursts (like what happens in bunch racing).

I use intervals for both... power intervals and aerobic time trials for the first, and sprint intervals for the second.