# how to reduce riding HR?



## mikmik (Nov 3, 2007)

I've been riding with a group of riders who are clearly much better than I am on saturdays and sometimes sundays. It's not a religious every weekend thing but more often than not. On these rides I am usualy in my anarobic section for about 50min out of a 2.5hr ride just to keep up!! Actually the only reason I can stick with them now till the end of the ride is because I can just hang on the back after my turn at the front (when I take them) but the whole experiance is still a suffer-fest for me. I've also noticed that my turns at the front are longer at higher speeds without blowing up. I've been doing this for around 6 months and although I have seen improvements my avarage heart rate is not dropping. That is my main concern, I think I am getting stronger but just to stick with the group isn't getting any easier at all. And this year I would like to start racing but feel that my races will be an exact match to this current problem.

What training should I do during the week to remedy this? Any help will be much appreciated!!

ps:If it helps, I used to race for a couple years about 10 years ago and have been riding again for 12months but haven't got into racing yet. My max HR is 202, resting 56 and while sleeping down to 48. I ride mainly on the weekends roughly 160ks and sometimes (when time allows) I will do a couple rides through the week but I don't smash myself on these, usually an hr or so each outing. 

Thanks in advance!


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## The Flash (May 6, 2002)

Simple...keep doing what you are doing....during the week, get a day or two where you go hard by yourself at your threshold. When you can do it by yourself, hanging in a group is much easier....


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## wfrogge (Mar 5, 2007)

More solo efforts away from these guys will help raise your FTP * like 20-60 mins at a pace just below your FTP or LTHR* (see the SST training thread) . Raise your FTP and your HR on these rides will drop... assuming their FTP dosent go up as well


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## The Flash (May 6, 2002)

wfrogge said:


> More solo efforts away from these guys will help raise your FTP * like 20-60 mins at a pace just below your FTP or LTHR* (see the SST training thread) . Raise your FTP and your HR on these rides will drop... assuming their FTP dosent go up as well



You have just learned the secret of training for cycling....go forth and prosper.....


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## mikmik (Nov 3, 2007)

Okay, thanks for your advice guys, and I checked out the SST thread. By my understanding; ride a couple times during the week as well and train just below my threshold. By the sounds of things it's the "base" section of my training I have to concentrate on by doing a couple intervals of 20 min or so at 85-91% of max HR, sounds like a good place to start?


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## bill (Feb 5, 2004)

you know, the whole idea of "base" I think confuses the discussion. think of it this way -- you need to train to do what you need to do. training is not so specific that training x effort won't help you at y effort at all, but training is pretty danged specific. on your rides, you're probably training a brief VO2 max effort followed by a period at the back of the line where you're aerobically cooking well below where you need to be to be comfortable (more or less) thinking about hitting the front again. If you picked up your FT, you wouldn't be so gassed. If you do these FT efforts -- 2x20 or 2x30 or 1x 40 or whatever your schedule can accommodate -- without the VO2 or anaerobic efforts interspersed in there, you will increase both the power you can put out for an extended period and the time you can put out that power. And, yes, that 85-90% of your max probably is about where you need to be to train that extended effort. You likely will find that level of effort pretty hard to maintain, especially if you're doing these indoors, with zero coasting. If you're doing a shorter session, with shorter intervals (although you have to do these for at least ten minutes, I would say), you should hit the upper end of that. Longer intervals, the lower end. If you minimize going into the anaerobic level of effort, you can do these more often. They're still not terribly pleasant, but they won't wipe you out.


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## Creakyknees (Sep 21, 2003)

Also keep in mind that as you are getting fitter... so are they. But, since fitness is an asymptotic curve, you'll continue to get closer to the guys you ride with. But, you won't exceed them without some other factor that allows you to improve more than them. Solo training is a great way to control that.


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## bill (Feb 5, 2004)

. . .and, while I do know what you mean, thinking in terms of reducing your HR is not really the best way to look at things. your HR is what your HR is in reaction to the stress on your cardio-pulmonary system. you want to raise your level of fitness so that x power output is not such a stress. I'm not saying that you don't understand this, but it helps to put that cart behind the horse, because one of the things you find as your fitness improves is that you can train yourself to sustain higher HR's for longer periods of time. Even as I haven't seen certain upper HR's in years as I have got older, I can sustain HR levels at what feels like tempo that used to be really, really hard to sustain.


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## wfrogge (Mar 5, 2007)

Greg Lemond once said

It dosent get easier you just get faster


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## wfrogge (Mar 5, 2007)

Creakyknees said:


> Also keep in mind that as you are getting fitter... so are they. But, since fitness is an asymptotic curve, you'll continue to get closer to the guys you ride with. *But, you won't exceed them without some other factor that allows you to improve more than them.* Solo training is a great way to control that.


Thats not true. For some athletes it takes years of training before it clicks. These are the guys that race CAT 4 for 3 years then BAM all of the a sudden they are competitive CAT 2s. Some guys come out of the block the first year and move from 5's to 2's. The training curve is not the same for everybody.

This is assuming all parties in question are training the best they can.


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## bill (Feb 5, 2004)

wfrogge said:


> Greg Lemond once said
> 
> It dosent get easier you just get faster


Yeah. I have been riding seriously for about five years now, and I often reflect on the progression. Rides that made you absolutely cross-eyed, tunnel-vision, omigod, became bearable. And then you start taking pulls in the B group, and it gets harder again. And then you start hanging on to the A group. And then that gets easier. And then you start taking pulls in the A group, and it gets harder all over again. And then once you get there, on a given ride maybe you're the one making it hard, which is really, really hard.


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