Comparing Heart Rates to activites

[Bill]

In rowing you only have to use your legs to get your power output and HR high. There's a direct relationship between Watts shown by the monitor on C2 and what HR does. Indeed we can use HR to control power level, adjusting the rating. I'm usually at around 140 with 160-170W, rating 20. To get HR to 170 or more all I need do is go to 230W at 23-24.. if I can.

Hey James,

Do you apply the same sort of thinking to cycling as well - I ask because I've recently started using a stationary bicycle machine and am struggling to understand gears and power and HR.

ie could one say that "Heart Rate is usually XX when doing YY watts at a cadence of ZZ"

Does it matter what gear you are in for the above example or would one generally always do XX, YY, and ZZ no matter what the gear is ?

I imagine for a given HR I might produce the same watts on a bicycle but my brain gets messed up when it starts to consider cadence and gears ............. Maybe I should think like this .......................

on a gradient of ZZ in Gear WW I generally have a HR of XX when doing YY watts at a cadence of ZZ (seems like too much to think about)

Know any good web sites would help me understand this better ?

[jamesg]

On a bike, stationary or not I reckon there's only one rule, pedal as fast as reasonably you can while keeping the overall power load below AT.

This because almost all the work comes from the legs, and one at a time; so the force the single leg can generate dominates our strategy: too high and we cannot but stop, while training requires that we carry on.

As to numbers, the specific relationships of power (if the bike gives a reliable Watt level) cadence and HR are ours to study, if we want to. However even the most sophisticated Watt measurement systems for bikes indicate quite high error levels, especially at low power. They have to use strain gauges. Watts on the erg are more reliable thanks to the alternating action and the available flywheel speed data.

Suggest you have a look at the equivalent cycling web-sites. As I know nothing at all about it, they certainly know a lot more.

[Bill]

On a bike, stationary or not I reckon there's only one rule, pedal as fast as reasonably you can while keeping the overall power load below AT.

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Suggest you have a look at the equivalent cycling web-sites. As I know nothing at all about it, they certainly know a lot more.

Thanks James,

Have done some googling and reading and then some experiments with different cadences and gears and I can now understand what you have written above.