Joe Friel's Method of HR Training

[Brendan Vogt]

I bought his Total Heart Rate Training book. I have sold my road bicycle and decided to do just MTB. I have some confusion regarding my HR zones and not convinced I am seeing the correct zone values.

 

Here are my questions:

• Does the surface matter for the 30 minutes field test? Does it have to be offroad if I do MTB? Or can it be tar?
• The gravel road that I did my field test on has some steep hills with nice downhills after it. It starts off with a nice flat surface with some small inclines. Towards the 2nd half of the route the hills start. Will these hills influence my average heart rate? What I mean is will it bring down my average heart rate if the downhills are long? I don’t pedal much on these downhills, so my average heart rate will be reduced?
• My average heart rate for the last 20 minutes of the test is 173 bpm (which should be my lactate threshold) and my max is 181 bpm. Is this low for my average? Some guys get a max HR of over 200!

Does anyone use his way of determining your HR zones and actually training by it?

 

What I find with MTB is that my heart rate is relatively high. If i have to pedal any slower to bring it down I am going to fall over

Edited May 6, 2015 by bioluminescence

[SwissVan]

I bought his Total Heart Rate Training book. I have sold my road bicycle and decided to do just MTB. I have some confusion regarding my HR zones and not convinced I am seeing the correct zone values.

 

Here are my questions:

• Does the surface matter for the 30 minutes field test? Does it have to be offroad if I do MTB? Or can it be tar?
• The gravel road that I did my field test on has some steep hills with nice downhills after it. It starts off with a nice flat surface with some small inclines. Towards the 2nd half of the route the hills start. Will these hills influence my average heart rate? What I mean is will it bring down my average heart rate if the downhills are long? I don’t pedal much on these downhills, so my average heart rate will be reduced?
• My average heart rate for the last 20 minutes of the test is 173 bpm (which should be my lactate threshold) and my max is 181 bpm. Is this low for my average? Some guys get a max HR of over 200!

Does anyone use his way of determining your HR zones and actually training by it?

 

What I find with MTB is that my heart rate is relatively high. If i have to pedal any slower to bring it down I am going to fall over

 

IMO Surface does not matter as long as:

Its constant for the entire duration (30 minutes).

 

Ideally it should be flat or uphill or a bit of both BUT no downhill / stops / pauses. Its important that it is a constant race hard effort for the entire duration, downhills are difficult to maintain this type of effort without a decrease in HR no matter how hard you try.

 

Forget about your max Hr figure, stick with the 30 minute test figure.

[fanievb]

create an account on training peeks (free)

 

do the test, my loop is fairly flat (160m ascent) on tar

after a month or so the app works out your LTHR (lactate threshold heart rate) which most of the HR training is based on.

It also automatically adapts the ratio as you get fitter.

 

fwiw my max is 205 and lthr is 186

[geomark]

I am using Friel for MTB stage racing, pretty much +1 on what Swiss Van says re surface, I usually do my lactate threshold time trials on a road bike but purely for convenience. 

 

Heart rate max and zones vary greatly between people, a good 20 beats or so, all the theoretical max figures you see are just that, theoretical.  You are much better off determining your own via a test like this.

 

If you are always revving high on the MTB then you may need to look at doing more base training? But I would suggest you assess your heart rates first then see. 

[IdeJongh]

Been through Friel's perdioization a few times. Its a good program, especially when you are building base and gearing towards an event.

 

The max you see in the LTHR test is not your absolute max HR, that is tested separate.  But as mentioned, base your zones on the LTHR and you should be training in the right zones.

[IdeJongh]

 

 

What I find with MTB is that my heart rate is relatively high. If i have to pedal any slower to bring it down I am going to fall over

 

Wrt that point - go through the training stages, building base in Z2/Z3 and then building power in higher zones, will allow you to not only ride much faster at lower HR's, but also recover much quicker so your avg tends to be lower.