Disagreements in training guidance for zone 2 ride

Training & Coaching
1

Hi there,
I just finished a scheduled aerobic development bike ride on the trainer. I was given a heart rate range on my Garmin to follow and spent most of my time on that ride at the upper end of the prescribed range. When I visited the training plan, the planned load was 85 but the actual load for the ride ended up being 61. How is it that I was on the upper end of the range of HR prescribed yet I created so low of a load compared to what was prescribed?

Looking back, it’s happened on all of my aerobic development bike rides - I followed and stayed in the prescribed range and my actual load ended up being much lower than what was planned. I feel like I could handle the planned load (the effort I exert to stay in the target HR range is definitely easy for me). I’m wondering if the upper end of my L2 zone is too low?

Maybe my bike fitness is too low for this training plan? Like I can’t produce enough load at the prescribed HRs?

I think am physically capable of mounting a higher exertion at a higher HR than what is prescribed but don’t want to because the Garmin alerts of being outside the prescribed range are annoying. Not quite sure what the issue is.

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2

Hey there,

are your Garmin zones set to correspond your training zones with Athletica?

MJ

3

Great question! I checked my zones on the garmin and they auto calculate them based on %LTHR. Garmin d efines Easy as “75-81% LTHR” which does in fact give me the exact range I was sticking to. I wonder if I just don’t produce very much power at these HRs from lack of bike fitness and that causes my load to be low?

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4

Is it possible the planned load is calculated based on power, which would give a different value to that calculated based on HR?

Either way, if your breathing and RPE felt right, then I wouldn’t worry too much. Main thing with aerobic development is not to go too hard.

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5

I would double check that your Garmin zones are identical to Athletica zones (you did your test week, yes?) so that your actual execution tracks with zones in Athletica.
The second point I would say go by heart rate, RPE and feel anytime you are doing zone 2 or under work. It should feel easy, all day long pace, easy to talk in full sentences or nose breath. Anytime you dip into zone 3, you’ll notice talking becomes more difficult and you can drop the effort a little bit.

Let the power be what it is… as you get fitter and if you follow Athletica’s plan, you will, your power will increase at the same heart rate.

Hope this helps. If you need any help, take a screenshots from both athletes zones in athletica and garmin and let’s tweak if needed.

MJ

6

Garmin zones are NOT identical to athletica zones in my case. The upper end of zone 2 for Garmin is 135 bpm (which is where I sat for most of the ride). The upper end for Athletica is 140 bpm which, to me, feels much more accurate with RPE/feel. I think I could still have that nose-breathing / all-day feel at 140.

Age: 38
My MAF test last week was holding 209W @ 142 BPM
FTP test resulted in an estimated FTP of 263W, 167 BPM
Max HR ~183

On this trainer ride I was holding 135 BPM, cruising at 170W which drifted down over the 1h50m to maybe 160W.

I think the Athletica approximations make more sense than Garmin’s calculated ones. I felt fresh by the end and left with a sense of it being unproductive, even for a zone 2 ride.

I think I’ll just I manually set zones on the Garmin watch according to Athletica’s.

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7

Sounds reasonable to me. Yes, please adjust manually in Garmin so that it doesn’t annoy you :smiley:

And keep trusting that feel of yours.

MJ

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