Power vs HR mental load

[benb]

I am curious how many people have thought about this. I've had a PM almost 10 years now. Every single time I have worked with a coach they have severely downplayed the use of the PM and encouraged using HR. I am wondering if this was partly because they knew I was 99% outdoor training, but also just the level I was at.

Recently I was listening to the Roadman podcast (Irish?) and he had one of the coaches from Bora Hansgrove (Dan Lorang) and Dan put a fair amount of emphasis on that he thought amateurs were using the PM too much and not riding to the HRM enough. There was a lot of talk about HR being an output showing how your body is responding to a load vs PM being an input load you are putting on your body and the HRM is more useful for some things and the PM is more useful for other things.

Just curious, I have been riding more intervals the last month or so based on HR again, and the thing is it's way way more relaxing and less mentally fatiguing than the PM. I think it's really that you just don't feel like you "failed" and interval as easily when the environment gets in your way (car traffic, etc..).

For a lot of these medium/long length intervals the power seems to come out in the same place anyway for me. At some point here I want to try some of the newer short duration stuff, I am sure for that I won't want to use the HRM. But I just somewhat expect I am going to have more fun if I do more of this on HR.

[prototoast]

For training purposes, I think HR tends to make more sense for long intervals, power tends to make more sense for short intervals.

For pacing and evaluative purposes, I think power dominates HR.

[Chris]

I did some work for Roger Young years ago and Allen Lim and I both lectured on training aspects at a conference awhile back. Having the opportunity, I talked to both about their views on this matter. Both gave similar responses in that their views were that the body is too plastic to expect precision during training in terms of prescribing numbers. Roger believed that after a few years of training, people can make pretty accurate efforts based on feel. Allen had a similar philosophy. Some of his articles on the old bike.com reflected this. He suggested three zones of hard, medium and easy, which is similar to Seiler’s approach these days. Both Roger and Allen used power as a performance assessment tool after the training session and HR as a means to assess freshness/fatigue.

I’ve had two or three power meters in the past. I hated them. I’m too weak psychologically to use them because I look down and then think that there’s no way I can handle this power amount for the rest of the race/interval/ride.

[fourflys]

GCN (Manon) just posted a video about her 6 wks training in Zone 2 only and, toward the end, it has some good discussion on HR training I thought.. obviously, it wasn't at a higher level, but thought it was good.. especially when the coach was talking whether you ALWAYS had to stay in Z2/below Z3 on a ride or if it was ok to stray a bit (like taking off from a light or on hill).. pretty decent discussion.. not 100% answers your question, but I think is relevant to the discussion..

[Likes2ridefar]

I never had a coach stress heart rate over power and now I don’t use heart rate at all because I don’t like wearing a strap.

I often saw my prescribed workouts and sometimes balked at the required #s to hit and failed sometimes but that is how you get stronger.

[kppolich]

Power meter don't lie.


I ride with both but HR gonna do what HR gonna do to meet power goals.

[makoti]

By the time your HRM says it's time to back off, you've blown through your target. I much prefer using a PM.

That said, as an old guy, I find that to do my Z2 workouts by HR, I have to drop my FTP by 30+ watts to get the range where it needs to be. I can hold Z2-3 Power on the road without issue, but to do Z2 HR inside (which is where I do my workouts for that so I can control them), got to cut the power a lot.
I'm thinking it's because my MAX HR is some 30 beats less than it used to be.

[Tandem Rider]

I have trained using both over the years. HR is affected by a lot more than just current effort, how much sleep last night, rough patch with your significant other, worried about work, etc. PM is just "how many watts are you putting out". HR has an affect your power, but power gets you down the road. HRM just measures HR, it's up to you and/or your coach to keep it all in perspective.

I always found it helpful to measure resting heart rate before standing up in the morning and then immediately after standing up, the difference was always indicative of my fatigue. HR ended up being a "red flag" of when to recover rather than follow "the plan".

[Clean39T]

Oldie but a goodie from Kolie Moore..

>>>

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by Tandem Rider

I have trained using both over the years. HR is affected by a lot more than just current effort, how much sleep last night, rough patch with your significant other, worried about work, etc. PM is just "how many watts are you putting out". HR has an affect your power, but power gets you down the road. HRM just measures HR, it's up to you and/or your coach to keep it all in perspective.

I always found it helpful to measure resting heart rate before standing up in the morning and then immediately after standing up, the difference was always indicative of my fatigue. HR ended up being a "red flag" of when to recover rather than follow "the plan".

but I think that's a huge part of it (as I very minimally understand any of this).. that you can go out and do your workout via power and hit your marks, but if your body isn't in the right state, is the training really as effective long term? By using HR, you are staying in Z2 (for example) based on how your body is reacting to the stress being put on it vs. overreaching by using power only.. I could be way off, but that's how I internalized some of this..

[Wakatel_Luum]

Originally Posted by Likes2ridefar

I never had a coach stress heart rate over power and now I don’t use heart rate at all because I don’t like wearing a strap.

I often saw my prescribed workouts and sometimes balked at the required #s to hit and failed sometimes but that is how you get stronger.

I was listening to a podcast interview with Roglic's coach Dan Lorang and I believe he said he prefer's HR over power.

https://youtu.be/HQBODPQmOb0?si=PBc94SY03UkloG4L

[superbowlpats]

This could be a really interesting thread. I'm hoping that some PL coaches chime in. I know that John Mansell (rocketdude?) sometimes posts on here and he's a well respected cyclist/coach.

somewhat anecdotally, my best ever TT was when I forgot my Garmin so I couldnt look at my power numbers. just RPE

[vespasianus]

Originally Posted by kppolich

Power meter don't lie.


I ride with both but HR gonna do what HR gonna do to meet power goals.

Never had a stages HR have you!

[glepore]

I don't ride with a hrm much any longer, but it is useful for longer efforts. In the rolling country here, it is pretty much impossible to do a true zone 2 ride by power alone but you can keep the hr in z2 as it responds slower. Which has the greater physiological impact? Dunno.
I somewhat agree with the "plastic" body theory. Power is an excellent pacing tool, but on a good day when you can't feel the chain (an Eddyism) riding to a power target can be limiting, and on a tired day it can be counterproductive. The power data is one source of information among many to consider.
HR/pwr is a great gauge of freshness once you know your range, but perceived exertion is almost as accurate.

[gravelreformist]

I trained for many years by HR and perceived effort alone. They will take you to a point, but power is a much more reliable metric for me to work with. My experience is that both HR and perceived effort vary significantly day to day. Especially where I live and ride where the hills roll continuously in every direction, trying to reign in your effort by those two methods is very difficult. It's easy to crest every roller at 100+ watts above target - efforts that won't be captured by either HR or PE. It's fine if you do that a few times a ride - but on my routes I might do that hundreds of times per ride. A power meter has enabled me to ride and train longer at a lower fatigue level.