Bicycling Magazine's New Cyclist Handbook by Ben Hewitt

Author:Ben Hewitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2005-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

The Heart Rate Trap

In this and other cycling books and articles, you’ll see plenty of references to heart rate. That’s because it is simply the most accessible way to determine intensity.

But it’s important to note that heart rate can be influenced by numerous factors that will leave you with a false impression of intensity. There’s no way around some of these influences, but by examining them and knowing what they are, you can better understand your body and how it responds to both effort and other factors. In fact, once you become tuned to your heart rate, you’ll be able to use it as an early warning sign to help you ward off illness or overtraining, even before you experience the symptoms discussed above.

The first step is simple: Wear your monitor every time you ride. Interestingly enough, many seasoned pros don’t wear their monitors on every ride, but that’s because they’ve become so keyed in to their body’s response to effort that they can effectively train by “feel.” You should also allow “feel” (some people call it “perceived exertion”) to guide your training, but in the early stages of your competitive cycling career, it’s good to have another marker to rely on, and the more you monitor your heart rate, the more you’ll begin to see correlations between it and external factors.

What are these factors? Well, caffeine is a common one. We all know the sweaty-palms, flutter-chest feeling that comes with too much coffee (heck, that’s why some of us drink it in the first place). That’s because caffeine stimulates the central nervous system, leading to an increase in both resting and active heart rates. Caffeine is a heart rate double whammy, because it’s also a diuretic; another cause of fluctuating heart rate is dehydration. Does this mean you should give up coffee and other foods (think chocolate) that contain caffeine? Of course not. But like any drug (yes, caffeine is a drug), it can be dangerous and detrimental to your health if used unwisely. As long as you don’t exceed a cup or three a day, you should be fine.

Of course, training can actually reduce your heart rate. That’s because your heart is a muscle, and like any muscle, it grows and becomes more powerful with use. As your fitness improves, you’ll notice a decrease in resting heart rate (your heart rate immediately upon waking in the morning, before getting out of bed) and the heart rate it takes to maintain a given workload. These decreases are very good signs that your training is having the desired effect.

If, on the other hand, your resting heart rate increases (you should get in the habit of checking and recording it each morning, as discussed earlier), you should suspect a couple of things. One, you might be on the edge of overtraining, and two, you might be on the edge of getting sick. In either case, the remedy is the same: Back off until your resting heart rate returns to normal.

Other factors

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