Cycling Fitness / Training Advice

You'd know if your HR was actually 220.

Any time I saw 220 on a Polar HRM I'd automatically put it down to electrical interference or a poor chest strap connection.

Under the circumstances I don't think I'd be able to measure my own heartrate to a degree any more accurate than 'going like the clappers'.

And I certainly know that I'm under major physiological stress, we beyond just going into the red. While it's happened I have tried adjusting the strap and sitting up and pressing the contact patches against my chest to see if that had any effect. I just think that if it was interference or a dodgy strap, it should be more random or erratic rather than producing a graph that would look perfectly normal if you scaled down the bpm numbers so the peak was 180 rather than 230.

Time to see the GP, I think if only for peace of mind.

Worth trying another strap to see if you can repeat it?

I got terribly HR data from my old Garmin strap. Seemed to spike. Sometimes it actually plateaued at a level 10 - 20 bpm more than actual. Which is tricky to spot and screwed up my historic data.

Pretty sure it was worse on the turbo.

What type of strap is it?

One of the soft Garmin ones. I don't have another Ant+ one to try.

These are the sorts of things I'm seeing...

@Sanddancer It should be pretty obvious if your heart is beating erratically and at 230bpm.

The fact you can sit up and adjust your HRM straps while this is happening makes me think it's dodgy HRM as I said before but you're the one that knows your body so if you think it's happening then get to a doctor and stop posting graphs!

Mine was a soft Garmin.

Get a new HRM.

The data is conclusive, you need a pacemaker.

I would put money on it being the HRM but I'd rather someone got it checked before they go for tachycardia turbo death. "You've changed... "

What's the best one to get? (Ant+)
I use HR mainly for running, so needs to be comfy.

I've used the Garmin transmitter and a Polar Wearlink+ strap as they were recommended as being higher quality than Garmin's soft strap and less susceptible to spikes and dropouts

You can get the Garmin transmitters OEM for a tenner on Ebay and £14 for the Polar strap.

Garmins soft strap design dies if they get too salty whilst Polar are much more robust

http://www.runworks.com/2014/06/garmin-soft-strap-heart-rate-monitor-failures/

Cheers - I'll go down that route then.

I just bought a new garmin soft.

The dodgy one was a Garmin run.

I've been having problems with mine too, read the DC Rainmaker thing and was going to get a Polar strap but then realised I don't actually have much use for HR... am I missing something?

Polar strap ordered. Let's hope I don't Kark it when trialing it.

They're useful if you want to do winter zone 2 training or track your SST, but not much more than that if you have a power meter.

I find the data interesting, possibly useful. For example for my 2x20's on the turbo, I can see if my average HR is decreasing for the same power vs previous sessions, it's an indicator of improved fitness and ftp. Or sometimes I just can't get it up (!), which can be a sign of fatigue / overtraining / illness.

This ^
Training to HR zones is apparently sketchy/difficult but what Hovis said agrees with my experience of using it

I tried reintroducing HR but it's just pointless with watts. I know if I'm stressed/overdoing things/getting ill and I don't care what my HR is doing so long as I either hit or don't hit my power targets.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I don't have power and ride flat TTs and HCs on feel / average speed so I guess I don't really need it.

It could be good to see increases in fitness, which I did when I was rinsing the turbo with a broken collar bone. Average HR for a known session dropped considerably. I don't train enough to worry about training stress.

HR is a nice way to get a feel for your current sweet spot level during the off season when an FTP can get to fuck.

I also find if it ramps easily then I can move power targets up a smidge because I'm on form.

Compliments power quite nicely I think.

Watts4lyf