Heart Rate, speed and cadance.

[plank]

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone knew any good ways of testing Heart Rate, speed and cadence data to find your personal optimal riding style?

Thanks!

 

[jimboalee]

Heart rate and power output, unfortunately DO NOT correlate.

The dependencies are your level of 'Spriteliness' on the day.

Sleep deprevation, work or school stress, fatigue and nutrition levels contribute to a day-to-day variable HR for the same power output.

Many sessions on a gym bike will give you an idea of HR vs Power, but you MUST take notes of your Resting HR, sleep patterns, eating patterns and how many times your boss shouted at you that day.

 

[roadjunkie]

I suppose the best way would be to select a route and then cycle it at different cadences/HRs/speed etc, ensure you record all the data and then analyse to see what best works for you. Ofcourse like jimboalee says there would be external factors to take into consideration also. If your loaded you could buy a watt bike - they are supposed to be the daddy!

 

[plank]

Ok thanks!

no not loaded enough to get a watt bike!

 

[Ben M]

Heart rate and power output, unfortunately DO NOT correlate.

The dependencies are your level of 'Spriteliness' on the day.

Sleep deprevation, work or school stress, fatigue and nutrition levels contribute to a day-to-day variable HR for the same power output.

Many sessions on a gym bike will give you an idea of HR vs Power, but you MUST take notes of your Resting HR, sleep patterns, eating patterns and how many times your boss shouted at you that day.

Surely the best way would be to:

get on an excersise bike
pick a power output and cadence
measure heart rate whilst maintaining that cadence and power output
pick a new cadence
measure heart rate whilst maintaining the new cadence, and the same power output as before.


the lowest heart rate would be your body's optimum cadence for that power (obviously a higher or lower power may have a different optimum cadence)

do it all in the same session, and variables like stress and what you had for breakfast wouldn't matter much. Even if they do, then do it a few times on different days, and take an average.

 

[stephec]

Try your local university, the sports science students sometimes need guinea pigs to test as part of their coursework.

They'll do it in a very controlled manner, with a tutor's supervision.