High Heartrates and HR Zone training

[maillotpois]

Is that your resting HR right when you wake up or at some point during the day? (True resting HR is calculated right when you wake up in the morning. Then compare day to day to see how it goes up or down.)

The preset age thresholds are a nice starting point, but if you are really going to maximize the training tools you have invested in (the powertap or garmin), then you should really consider a blood lactate threshold testing or gas exchange testing. Both use lactate threshold as the key value for setting the HR zones. The former (blood lactate testing) is where you ride a computrainer for about a half hour total, and the power level is raised every few minutes and you have blood taken and tested every few minutes as well. Your HR is constantly monitored. This tells you at what HR and power output you are no longer able to clear lactate from your blood.

Gas exchange gives similar values, but that's the one where you're hooked up like a scuba diver to hoses you breathe through.

There's got to be some sports med facility nearby that does this sort of testing.

This testing also gives you peak power values so you can use power for training instead of or in addition to HR testing.

So here's an example of comparing the age based and clinically tested HR values: An online zone calculator based on my age (41) gives me 135 - 147 for zone 3, 147 - 160 for zone 4 and 160 - 169 for zone 5. By contrast, my most recent blood lactate testing in March gave 145 - 168 for zone 3, 168 - 173 as zone 4 and above 171 as zone 5. And I know those March values have increased since then because my level of fitness has improved since the (I was tested shortly after a 2 month break from riding because I'd broken a bone.) So my zones are actually slightly higher than as tested.

So you can see those calculated age based values can be wildly off.