I have just completed an exercise where it became obvious that the HR targets are meaningless. In this case the HR after a hard part was dropped from Z4 to Z1 immediately, Life is not like that. The HR recovers progressively and over time.
With my MSc in Sport Psychology under my belt I feel obliged to add that this could be demotivational to some people.
Come on Wahoo, get real! Sort it out. Right now it just looks lazy.
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I believe this to be an effort level, not a target, i.e., you should be giving as much effort as you would if your HR were to be Zone 1.
Not everyone trains with a power meter, so having HR effort levels is an option for those.
I can’t imagine that the SYSTM expectation is that one’s HR will drop immediately.
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Hey Pete, yeah, it’s not perfect but as @titanicus said it’s about the relative effort or where we would expect to see your HR later in the interval, not what you’re going to see right when you transition from one target to the next. HR dynamics are highly complex and even building a robust model wouldn’t solve this issue for everyone in all scenarios (fatigue, stress, dehydration, etc), and on top of that everyone is going to be different based upon their Rider Profile and training history, someone with years of training may see very fast HR recovery while newer people to these types of workouts may never really recover between some efforts.
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Mmmm. This was discussed in years gone by a few times.
There were a few videos trialled with modified HR targets but it was never more than a few if I remember right.
Personally - I’m totally happy with the target HR zone reflected the power zone and knowing full well that it’s just a reflection of the power zone.
Once algorithms are needed to guesstimate when an individual will recover from Z4 to Z2 HR for example then it can never be right. It’s impossible. Every individual will recover different day to day never mind different individuals.
Keep it simple gets my vote. Otherwise we’re starting to worry about recovery heart rate matching a made up guessed Heart rate zone inbetween intervals when it’s the intervals that matter
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Yep. Just adding my 2 cents to this convo. The HR zones are typically pegged to match the corresponding power targets regardless of whether your actual HR will reach that level or not. In some videos the HR was modified to be closer to the elected HR zone most riders would see for some shorter intervals where you don’t spend enough time for your HR to actually get high enough. But because HR is a lagging data indicator - and because of all the individual variability as mentioned already by others - everybody’s ability to have their HR match the HR zone targets shown in the workouts will vary widely. So it’s more informational than a hard target.
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