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Trying to include more zone 2 into my rides as I noticed most of my time is spent in zone 3. I'm getting confused as Trainer Road, Strava, and my Wahoo Elemnt bolt all have different zones even though they have the same max HR.
The Elemnt's Zone 2 feels too slow and when I train to power on TR my HR is quite a bit higher during zone 2. I might be over thinking but is it worth making custom zones on the Elemnt for outdoor rides?
Pick a well establish one and stick with it: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/power-training-levels/
Zone 2 feels slow for me too, except when knocking out 200w downhill. It does work though.
I started using British Cycling training plans in Trainingpeaks last year so decided to use their HR zones.
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/membership/article/20120925-Power-Calculator-0
I find this a curious subject, as they do seem to vary widely depending on where you get your info. Just looking at the Training Peaks ones linked above and they're really quite high.
Default Elemnt ones are definitely on the low side (Their high end of zone 2 is only just above the low end of Training Peaks' Zone 2 for me).
I will say though, when it's a constant effort and you're not cheating, freewheeling downhills, even a very low intensity, you will start to feel in your legs after 3 or 4 hours. Especially say, on the turbo where there is no let-up at all. And the idea is not to create too much fatigue.
It's interesting though. Either they can't all be right, or it's not quite the exact science they would like us to believe.
Zone 2 is always easy at first, the point is you're supposed to keep on it for 3+ hours, at which point it stops being easy. It's also surprisingly hard to keep up downhill, as Kryton says - the same power feels like you are absolutely smashing it on descents and dawdling on climbs.
Either they can’t all be right, or it’s not quite the exact science they would like us to believe.
The zones go hand in hand with the coaching. So if a coach chooses low criteria for z2 they'll end up giving you more z3, I'd imagine.
I will say though, when it’s a constant effort and you’re not cheating, freewheeling downhills, even a very low intensity, you will start to feel in your legs after 3 or 4 hours. Especially say, on the turbo where there is no let-up at all.
Yeah on the turbo long session in zone 2 feels hard towards the end. Riding in zone 2 of power puts my hr up in the low end of zone 3 after a while.
Wahoos hr zones just feel too low. I might try adjusting them to the same as strava and see how it feels. Though stravas zone 1 is called endurance instead of recovery which is annoying.
Yeah on the turbo long session in zone 2 feels hard towards the end. Riding in zone 2 of power puts my hr up in the low end of zone 3 after a while.
What you are describing is "aerobic decoupling" or HR drift in layman's terms. There are programs/sites that can work this out for you: Training Peaks/Golden Cheetah/intervals.icu are three that I know of, the latter two are free.
When on the turbo do you have a decent fan? I had what I thought was a good one then I got a Vacmaster fan, it's like a hurricane! Doing the same workout is a completely different experience.
With that fan a zone 2 workout hardly gets my HR out of Z1. Looking at the last such workout I did, in one hour I had 6mins in power Z1 and 54mins in Z2. My HR was 59m53s in Z1 and 7 seconds in Z2.
Interesting post - not sure I’d get too caught up on it. Depending on what your goals and aims are? HR training, at best, is always going to be a bit vague and wishy washy compared with power data - but it’s a good starting out point as power meters are a lot more money. Power is king.
Training peaks seems to be the site most used for data by athletes and coaches, so I’d trust those figures the most myself - provided you’ve input your age, weight, max HR and everything correctly.
Zone 2 should feel like the zone you can ride at indefinitely, provided you’re well fuelled . But I go by power zone 2. Whenever I have to train with HR on the mtb, I always take the data with a pinch of salt, as I know it’s just guessing training stress score (sometimes I know for sure my training stress score would be higher at the same effort if I had power data, for example). That’s a slight side note, but all relevant info in the world of HR.
I have 2 fans for when on the turbo but they're not great. I really use the turbo during the winter because of this so you're probably on to something about temperatures. It was hot on Saturday.