See also the Forum topic: A few HR queries - Decoupling and the Like
The following post is a discussion [with lots of participants] in the 60+ group about HR decoupling. It has been moved here to let everyone participate.
Ray Isaac
I’m writing to seek the wisdom of the elders. I have been allowed to watch the activities of several people in this group. Those of whom I am most jealous are those who can undertake long rides AND have very little heart rate de-coupling occur. That seems to me one of the improvements we can reasonably aim for at this stage of our lives. My question to those of you who demonstrate this ability (which I imagine was specifically aimed for and was hard won) is HOW DID YOU DO IT? Over to those experts. Don’t be shy; let us all know if there is a secret and what it is!
Kim Bonde
Hi Ray
Guess I’m one
Have never been fat
Smoked til year 40
From the age of 20 to 40 never did any sport. Was limited active due to 3 back operations.
Ran my first Marathon just after year 40. 2:54:00.
Started running 8+ hours a week.
I did my first IM at year 50.
Started swimming, cycling & running 10+ hours a week.
Always varied workouts between long endurance and short speed in all 3 sports.
No specific setup, just what I felt like doing and what seemed to give positive results.
Most breaks in training have been due to bodily malfunctions, old injuries making new problems and a couple of new broken bones.
And then this year, where moving house mixed with Moderna Covid shots mixed with a forest tick on my leg, seemed to have cut training results and times down to 75%.
My max pulse has been 178 for a long time. Set it to 172 5 years ago, and these days it’s about 170.
When exercising I’m always following the pulse, and when it’s too high, I slow down immediately.
Mainly because just a little time in the high gives up to 3 days in the lows afterwards, with tiredness and dizziness keeping max speed down.
So one reason for no decoupling might be that I do not permit it.
Then, like Knud wrote, and I hope most here on 60+, I follow my numbers rigorously. Any unforeseen change, and I look and think back to what could have caused it.
Many times it has been changed load in training and questionable diet.
( Like consuming too much of the excellent German coloured stuff from Haribo … a trix Rolf Sørensen taught me … )
Don’t know if any of this is useful,
Maybe just - Always varied workouts & always following the pulse
Bill Shirer
I’ve heard of and understand the concept of heart rate decoupling, but I don’t ever think about it. I probably have experienced it a few times, but it’s been in races that are not going well. I can feel it when it happens. I think usually it’s been because of dehydration.
Like Kim, I’ve never been fat, and I’ve been doing endurance work for 35 years. Also, like Kim, my heartrate has not decreased all that much. When I was 35-40, max was about 185. Now it’s close to 180.
Michael Webber
Hi Ray: HR decoupling…
[1] Here is an article from one of the respected websites about what HRD is: https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/aerobic-endurance-and-decoupling/. It may be semantics, but HRD is simply a measure of endurance [+ a few environmental factors]. It’s endurance that is aimed for, and HRD is a measure of the degree to which it is attained.
[2] HRD seems to be caused by several factors: dehydration; heat; fatigue. Seiler has some good opinions about HRD – see Stephen Seiler - YouTube for a play list. The decoupling graph on intervals.icu is loosely based on Seiler’s measure. Seiler’s video on ‘how long is long enough?’ points out that eventually everyone gets HRD: the question is when [how long into the ride] it fronts up. That’s your endurance.
[3] The general consensus seems to be that long, slow distance riding is the name of this game – Z2. But it takes time, and is something that you build up over years and years. Repeated Z2, week in, week out, with higher intensity riding occasionally. I make sure that I do a 4-hour ride every week [though life sometimes intervenes], and I also do events that are 1 or 2 or 3 weeks of 4-5 hour rides six days a week. If you don’t now go out on rides this long, then build up to it gradually – but do build up to it.
[4] Lots of the people in this group have been riding or doing other endurance sport for decades. Me, for about 10 years. So we’ve all got years of this kind of endurance training. See Kim’s post for an example! If you’re a more recent convert, then there are all those newbie gains to be made!
[5] Resting HR, max HR, HRV, HR decoupling are all highly variable from day to day. There are attempts to decipher those variations in terms of overtraining, but that’s not important here. The thing to remember is that sometimes decoupling measures will be high and sometimes they will be lower – so you should see some gradual improvements over the long term, but not necessarily from day to day.
I hope that this helps flesh out a little Kim’s history.
Bill Shirer
While I was riding this a.m., I thought the same thing that Michael said. If you are rather new to endurance training, it will take at least 3-5 for your body to adapt.
Ray Isaac
Thanks to everyone who has chimed in on my request for advice about HR decoupling. Michael’s references were particularly helpful. The consensus seems to be that extended years of riding combined with a high percentage of those rides at a lowish percentage of your FTP holds the key. Strava tells me I’ve done over 100 000 km so I have the first part ticked off. Now I’ll try the multi-hour Z2 rides. Here in Australia a large percentage of the country is battling the Delta variant and we are shut down with no outdoor rides. We’re just approaching Spring so hopefully we’ll get outdoors to ride soon. I certainly couldn’t do 3 and 4 hour rides on the trainer!!
Michael Webber
Ray: I just looked over your rides for August. Two things struck me.
[1] Your decoupling is very small or negative. I looked at the two 2hr+ rides [14 and 18 August I think – one had very small decoupling and one had negative decoupling. Both are within the range that I would have thought quite reasonable. At 2 - 2:15 hrs, you do not seem to exhibit any real decoupling. So the question is what happens when you go longer…
[2] Your rides are mostly 1 hour indoor or about 2 hr outside. If you really want to work on your endurance, then the longer rides that we’ve all been suggesting seem to me to be the way to go. But if all you want / need is rides of u to 2:15 hrs, then what’s the problem?
Bill Shirer
Michael, your two a day approach is pretty hard core, both because you ride 2x in a day and the second one is on a trainer and is over an hour. About Covid and rides, in Texas, we are not shut down in any form or fashion (and of course our hospitals are at the breaking point). In fact, today the “Hotter Than Hell” ride occurred in Wichita Falls. It usually has some 10-14k riders! (Quite insane.) I was concerned last year, but started doing outdoor rides in June. We would have large groups of 50+ riders and the rides were 3-4 hours. I never heard of anyone coming down with Covid from the group. And we are still doing the group rides, but even with the Delta variant, I’m not aware of any infections in the group. (Could be that most are vaccinated?) In any event, I really think that the risk of riding outdoors is really small. (And I’m in favor of masks, vaccinations, etc.) Today.
Bryan Samson
My understanding of Seiler’s approach (among others) is that accurate measurement of HRD requires an indoor seated test in one gear, minimum 1 hr at the same wattage. Seiler talks about LT1 (1st lactate turning point at your all-day pace) - about 75% of FTP, after a warm-up. Even if you have decades in your legs my understanding is that you will lose some endurance if you stop training for a while ( as little as 3 weeks). And on a slightly different point, remember that adaptation (improvement in fitness) happens during recovery. And you can’t be at your best all year round. Sometimes taking 2 weeks off is the best thing you can do.
Gerhard Eisele
Hi Ray
seeking the wisdom of the elders? Your´re 68 – what do you expect? There are not numerous guys in this group you can ask. And being jealous of us undertaking long rides? That´s not funny at all: The Australians are locked up on their small island strictly banned to do outdoor activities!? High risk of infection due to extremely density of population! When you leave Ballarat you´re in the middle of nowhere (from my German perspective).
But your question gets to the core of the matter within our chat group: HOW DO YOU DO IT? At this age you can feel that times are changing and the recipe from some years ago probably don´t work any longer.
I´m not an expert but I´ve read a lot of stuff on sports physiology and tried to digest it. So I´m sure there´s neither a hidden secret nor a silver bullet. But there are definitely many snake oil salesmen out there who try to convince you of the very opposite.
Like Kim I will tell you some facts: Never was fat – about 70 kg and 1,77 m. Did dinghy sailing until age of 20 – sedentary work, not really hard due to mostly gentle winds on our lake. Smoked cigarettes and pipe till I got 40. Started with endurance sports at 30 (running up to half-marathon distance, XC-skiing up to 50 km). Came into cycling at about 40. Never trained consistently, seriously and focused but most of the time went full gas. Started cycling more deliberately when I retired in 2013 at age of 64. Had 74 kg at that time. Now I´m 72y and down to 66 kg and 175cm. Ramped up workload from 6.000 km in the 1st year to about 12.000 km/a. About 500 h/a and 150.000 m VG. Bought a power meter in 2013 and a wahoo KICKR in 2014. Live in a hilly region with chance to do climbs up to 400 m vertical elevation. Usually hammered those climbs at 90 to 120 pct FTP. Riding time was from 1h up to 6h. When jumping on the KICKR during wintertime I mostly did Sweet Spot-work (1h of 10 to 20min) and very hard but short Z5&6-intervals from 30s to 3min. No pain – no gain!
Since four years I yearly do an organized 7d-bike-trip in the Alps or Pyrenees climbing these iconic cols of the Giro, Tour and Vuelta. Usually more than 600 km and 15.000 m VEG. Very hard but awesome! Got older but better every year. My power profile on intervals.icu tells me I´m between 90 and 100% of the M70+ group from 5s to 4h. Perfect All Rounder. So going hard all the time seems to be a formula for success.
Numbers hardly didn´t change from 2017 to 2020. But I noticed that things have somewhat changed when I got 70y. Starting the outdoor season I always could go very hard on short climbs (300 Watts or 4.5 W/kg for 6 min). But came summertime these numbers went south and I was not able to ride hard for several hours. Instead of climbing Alpe d`Huez at 200 Watts I was crawling at 170.
So I realized that doing the same thing over and over again ended up in more and more worse results. I restarted reading and ran into Stephen Seiler on YouTube. (Will continue tomorrow)
Ray Isaac
Thanks for the follow up Michael. I thought those outdoor rides with high varaibility (1.23 and 1.31) would mean they offered little information about HR decoupling. Seiler suggests steady state near LT to see it. That’s why I thought workouts like Black from 11 August might indicate the issue better. Excluding the warmup and cooldown gives a decoupling value of 6.7%. Perhaps I’m imagining an issue that’s not there. I’m still keen to try some longer outside Z2 rides though. I do sometimes do longer rides (3 to 4 h) but not so much since intermittent Covid restrictions and they’re usually hard bunch rides
16:36
And yes Gerhard, lots of us are locked up. It’s not a small island though! I think our early relatively successful response to Covid engendered a belief that we could lockdown our way out of it for ever, but Delta has made that look pretty naive. Now we’re hanging io and holding our breath until we start catching up with most of the developed world with vaccinations. Looking forward to part 2 of your thoughts
Michael Webber
Ray, you’re on TR, right? Check out the Forum thread: “Z2 increase vs FTP increase”. There’s an interesting post by stevemz near the [current] end.
Gerhard Eisele
So here I am again. The question: HOW DO YOU DO IT? (Riding long and hard without too much aerobic decoupling). Tonight some other questions came crossing my mind:
WHY DO I RIDE?
HOW AM I RIDING?
DOES THE WAY I RIDE SERVE MY OBJECTIVES?
WHY:
I always liked to feel fit and agile – both with body and mind. And I always liked to be outdoors: Running through the woods, hiking in the mountains, cycling on lonely paths or roads by MTB or roadbike. And when I use a machine like a bike I feel I can kill two birds with one stone: It keeps me fit physically and as I´m moving fast under complex conditions the brain has to work constantly by dealing with the environment. I hope this will help me feeling young when I get older.
HOW?
Most of us will agree: We have to ride hard. And here we are on a highway to hell. And Strava and powermeters will guide as there. We have the numbers - and numbers exist to be improved without end. So I found myself constantly pushing on my local uphill segments trying to beat myself and the other guys. And that was clearly a dead-end street. After two years I ended up as No. 1 of my agegroup on Strava everywhere I´ve ridden. Where to go? I started to compare my data with those of younger riders or even tried to get on the frontpage of best 25 by using heavy tailwind on flat segments. And as I moved up to the next agegroup the same thing started all over again. And when I started with my seven days trips across the Alps I´ve set my goals to end up within the best 10% of riders uphill on those Cat 1 or HC climbs. And then you will find out quickly you´re in a highly competitive environment with strong locals and other guys from whole Europe who want to achieve the same thing. And as I´m a fast descender I often scored within the fastest one percent of tenth of thousands on those long downhills. This was crazy!
And from this point things have changed. I came home with that numbers and some pretty pictures showing me on the Stelvio and Mortirolo, Galibier and Madeleine, Tourmalet and Aspin. And I looked at this pictures I´ve shot (pretty good pictures, surprizingly) and realized I barly could remember this awesome scenery of those bold mountains. And I thought about the grueling possibility to crash at 80 km/h when flying down without pulling the brakes.
And I recognized that this kind of riding was terribly bad and stupid.
So I had to reflect:
WHAT GOALS DO I HAVE?
Still feeling as young as possible and as long as possible. And be able to enjoy riding for hours and every now and then mastering epic climbs but without missing to soak up the unfolding scenery. So I´m back from where I started.
AND WHAT SKILLS WILL I NEED TO MEET AND MASTER THOSE GOALS?
I don´t need a devastating sprint power. I don´t need to be the puncheur initiating the brakeaways in the Saturday group ride. I don´t want to be a slave to STRAVA Segments! (Still I agree this would be fun, even when I get older).
But I do need to have a rock-solid base fitness. I have to build up fatigue resistance. And muscular endurance for grinding up steep ascents at low cadence.
How to get there?
When you´re a runner, you are a sprinter, a middle- or a long-distance runner. The fascinating and difficult thing with cycling is to master all these disciplines at the same time. But cycling is foremost an endurance sport and for this purpose you have to train your metabolic systems accordingly. Delving into the literature I found: Part of your performance can only be developed by riding long, others by riding hard. Long means really long and hard means really hard. But you cannot ride long and hard at the same time. There´s no shortcut to that. But to ride long we have to ride easy and easy riding is not for tough riders and so most of us end up in no man´s land: The long rides are too hard and therefore we are too fatigued to put the hammer down on really hard rides. And so the so-called hard rides aren´t hard enough. Yet we have missed both goals: Too much pain for small gain, as Steven Seiler tells us.
So how to shape those rides? More on that tomorrow. Hope this is not too boring, but everybody is free to ignore it.
Bill Shirer
I don’t think you need to ride “really long” unless you are going to do some event that is really long. If not, then a ride of 3-5 hours is enough for me. (Although my 3 hour rides have some pretty intense moments.) In my opinion (and many others like Joe Friel), it’s far more important as you age to do hard intervals. My endurance is good, and what I want to improve is my 5 min efforts to initiate or join breakaways. Or just avoid getting dropped. Long lonely rides bore me. But then again, I’m in North Texas in the summer. It’s flat and pretty much ugly. And it’s hot and humid. Everything I wear is wet when I finish a hard 3 hour ride, and I’m always through riding by 10:30 am. So the way I ride serves my purpose with the landscape I have. If I had the option to ride beautiful mountain passes, I’d certainly have to change the way I ride and train. Still, I think intervals should be a mainstay.
Gerhard Eisele
To add a comment on Aerobic Decoupling.
As already annotated there are several reasons for the increase of heartrate with ongoing work duration. As I know blood pressure and stroke volume are declining with longer work duration. And as blood is transporting oxygen to the working muscle cells, HR must go up when cardiac output´s going down. You don´t need a HR monitor - you will feel it as an increasing rate of perceived exertion. Typically it comes into play after two hours of riding.
But there´s another reason for AD: Your energy is created by burning fat and carbohydrates. To burn this stuff we need oxygen. This metabolic process in the end generates ATP as the universal currency for energy supply in muscle cells. And to generate a certain amount of energy from fat we will need about ten percent more of oxygen compared to the same amount from carbohydrates.
So when we ride, we always burn a mixture of fat and CH. The ratio of fat/CH-burning is shifting more and more from fat to CH the harder we ride. But as fat storage will last for days, CHs will be worn out within one or two hours depending on how hard we ride. As there are no more CHs we have to rely on fat and so the HR must go up to deliver the amount of oxygen needed for the same power. This will also contribute to the observed decoupling.
What to do: Train your fat metabolism to save the precious CH-stuff for the bouts to come when your buddies accelerate. This is where Z2-riding comes into play. The downside of fat metabolism is that it´s energy flow rate is more than three times slower compared to CH. So it´s impossible to go hard with fatburning alone.
How can I get information about my metabolic process? We can go to a lab and do a graded exercise test with analysis of respiratory gas flow. Won´t get that for free. But there´s a smart alternative without a lab. (but also not for free). The World Tour Pros from Movistar, Jumbo-Visma and Alpecin-Fenix are using it. But it´s open for everybody willing to pay for it. I did it two years ago and will talk about what I learned from that.
