HR Zones as % of max

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Maybe this is just me. If it’s just me or I’m in the minority, it can be safely ignored.

But I tend to think of my HR zones as %ages of my max HR, not my lactate threshold HR. I kind of get that you’re making the zones work around your LTHR, but this…

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…just looks untidy and hard to process to me, to be going from 0-112%. 100 should be max!

I would much more think about Endurance as 60-75% of max, maybe, tempo as 75-83%, etc. And then the final zone (I prefer to think of it as the “Max Capacity” zone or the “Oh, F***” zone) is 95-100%.

It just feels like there should be a solution where LTHR is still a usable metric, but the % benchmark is your HRmax.

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It’s not @david’s idea to make it work around LTHR, but Joe Friel’s (http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2009/11/quick-guide-to-setting-zones.html).

In my case it’s 114% (152 - 174)…

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Yes Cyclopaat is correct, I based this Joe Friel work. I agree that using % of max HR should probably be an option.

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I think your LTHR is a very valuable metric and it’s not weird to center zones around that. Max HR is still 100%, just not of LTHR :sunglasses:

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By comparison: on Strava, Z5 is max HR (100%) and up. Now, that’s weird…

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The best reason for using LTHR rather than HRmax is that getting to HR max can be dangerous – especially for older folks.

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my life is spent bouncing around lthr to get best from legs :laughing: very happy with Joe Friels 7 zones