Consistent Power Output

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

I don't see the relevance of cardiac output to cycling training. Your heart gets stronger with training. So what? Does this make you faster?

Much of training is about focusing on limiting factors. The heart is not a limiting factor in endurance exercise, or else you'd be able to cycle at 200bpm for six hours straight. The fact that you can't is nothing to do with your heart.

Whether your heart can efficiently supply your muscles with oxygen over extended duration effort certainly sounds like a potential limiting factor to me, particularly for the very long stuff.

My own experience is that I have become more and more comfortable in the last few years at progressively higher heart rates. I can now cycle for an extended period at what I formerly considered unattainable or attainable only for a short period.

It's certainly a factor. Maybe not one you should be focusing on if you are trying to optimize your training in a limited time frame. I don't train myself, I ride my bike, mean to give "training" a go some time though. If you only look at training your legs undoubtedly the cardio system will come on of its own accord which I presume is your point.

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

My own experience is that I have become more and more comfortable in the last few years at progressively higher heart rates. I can now cycle for an extended period at what I formerly considered unattainable or attainable only for a short period.

Emphasis indicates the opposite case to that which you seek to prove. If your heart had been a significant limiting factor which was removed by training, then your cycling heart rate would be lower, not higher, because it would be worked less hard.

Your training has improved the ability of your muscles to use oxygen/fat/glycogen, and of your body to remove waste products (lactate shuttling/buffering and all that guff), therefore you can make greater demands of your heart.

Obviously the heart plays a critical role in exercise, I just don't see how it is relevant to training.

This is why power-based training is considered superior to HR-based training. It's focused on the directs demands you place on skeletal muscle, not the indirect effects those demands place on your (far superior) cardiac muscle.

Presumably you could genetically engineer a super-human made entirely of cardiac muscle, but you'd then run into breathing, plumbing and feeding limitations. And it still wouldn't be better than Lance..

awaits bitch-slap by resident physiologists

DirkVoodoo

I thought the important element of heart metering was how quickly your HR settles after hard efforts, as peak HR is more a function of age and overall fitness combined.

Also, a stronger heart is able to supply the muscles more efficiently with oxygen and nutrients, so surely a better heart means crap can be removed quicker?

Where are the doctors?

dave2pvd

Lumen wrote: »

Speed is a poor analogue for power when training outdoors, since it's affected by gradient and wind, but indoors power is directly correlated with speed on the rollers (though the relationship may not be linear), and this relationship should be constant from day to day.

I hate to be pedantic here - but there is a caveat: all things being equal. The main 'thing' is tyre pressure. With roller's small diameter, changes in tyre pressure produce significant differences in effort. So, always pump your tyres before each session.

Lumen

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Also, a stronger heart is able to supply the muscles more efficiently with oxygen and nutrients, so surely a better heart means crap can be removed quicker?

How so? Surely if your heart needed to work "better" during cycling, your body would just increase the heart rate. Which it does, up to a point, until your other systems max out and you have to back off.

If the heart was something that really needed training, then successful cyclists would isolate this aspect and train it specifically. This is easily done by whole body exercise (e.g. running, swimming, MILF-trainers etc). But no-one does this, because it doesn't work, or at least not significantly enough to steal time from proper cycling training which taxes muscles, fat burning systems, etc.

Empirically, if there was a critical cardiac-specific component of endurance exercise then Lance Armstrong wouldn't have taken 3 hours to run a marathon.

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

Emphasis indicates the opposite case to that which you seek to prove. If your heart had been a significant limiting factor which was removed by training, then your cycling heart rate would be lower, not higher, because it would be worked less hard.

My heart rate IS also lower at any given speed.

You seem to be arguing that untrained individuals have the same aerobic endurance capacity as trained individuals but just lack the muscles to make use of this capacity... which just isn't true.

If you are saying for training focus on the legs and don't worry about heart capacity I don't think I would disagree, don't know how you could address the heart without using your legs (or other limbs) after all and so may as well do something that exercises both in a relevant sense. But I do think your aerobic capacity is relevant to performance (EPO is at root artificial enhancement of your aerobic capacity.)

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

You seem to be arguing that untrained individuals have the same aerobic endurance capacity as trained individuals but just lack the muscles to make use of this capacity... which just isn't true.

No, I'm saying that "aerobic endurance" isn't the same as "cardiac output". This is a discussion about heart rate.

blorg wrote: »

But I do think your aerobic capacity is relevant to performance (EPO is at root artificial enhancement of your aerobic capacity.)

EPO doesn't affect the heart, it affects the blood. This is a discussion about heart rate.

blorg wrote: »

If you are saying for training focus on the legs and don't worry about heart capacity I don't think I would disagree, don't know how you could address the heart without using your legs (or other limbs) after all

Good

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

Empirically, if there was a critical cardiac-specific component of endurance exercise then Lance Armstrong wouldn't have taken 3 hours to run a marathon.

Lance didn't do badly (for him) in the marathon due to a lack of aerobic capacity, that is for sure. But there are plenty of untrained individuals who would be "out of breath" running before their legs gave in.

Coming from cycling to running, I found the exact opposite, I had sufficient aerobic capacity to run as long as I liked with the limiting factor being my legs. But that was because I already had the aerobic capacity.

Indeed, I suspect getting out of breath is a more common problem with novice cyclists; you have to get to a certain level for leg burning to become a more dominant limitation for you. These are just the subjective impressions.

Note nowhere am I saying aerobic capacity is the only thing that matters, that would be ridiculous. But it is equally ridiculous to suggest it doesn't matter at all.

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

No, I'm saying that "aerobic endurance" isn't the same as "cardiac output". This is a discussion about heart rate.

You asked 'What is "cardiovascular endurance"?' after I used the term. I was simply suggesting that this improved with training, and it does. I didn't equate "aerobic endurance" directly with "cardiac output" but this is not to say they are completely unrelated. I had a sense you were being particular and I was right there. :rolleyes:

EPO doesn't affect the heart, it affects the blood. This is a discussion about heart rate.

What is the function of your heart but to pump oxygenated blood around? Faster HR/greater volume = more blood = more oxygen to the muscles. That is a ridiculous distinction.

I think you are being difficult, have another one of these: :rolleyes:

rflynnr

(Back he comes informed only by ignorance).

Not sure that this throws any light on the Blorg/Lumen debate but when I started looking at this cardiac drift thing, I had understood it to be a kind of proxy measure for how well the body as a whole (see how I neatly sidestepped the muscle/heart dichotomy) handles extended effort. Even Friel says there's no point in training the heart in isolation (in the context of counselling caution about over-reliance on HRMs). The smaller the percentage of cardiac drift, the closer one's heart rate is to paralleling power output (as opposed to gradually increasing in a bid to maintain the same output). Thus if one can trace a drop in cardiac drift over a training period, then one can infer that the demands made by one's muscles on the heart for oxygen have also dropped (implying greater muscle efficiency). However, the heart itself is a muscle, so it will also become more efficient.

I didn't mean to imply that I was seeking to develop some kind of baboon-like blood pump in the belief that it alone would dramatically alter my performance.

(This doesn't help at all, does it?)

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

You asked 'What is "cardiovascular endurance"?' after I used the term. I was simply suggesting that this improved with training, and it does. I didn't equate "aerobic endurance" directly with "cardiac output" but this is not to say they are completely unrelated. I had a sense you were being particular and I was right there.

I still don't understand the point you are trying to make. You entered this discussion in response to my assertion that cycling training was about loading the skeletal muscles, not the heart. You then stated:

"Whether your heart can efficiently supply your muscles with oxygen over extended duration effort certainly sounds like a potential limiting factor to me, particularly for the very long stuff."

If this is true (and it isn't) then there would be a significant cycling performance gain from specifically stressing the heart in training, which is best done by whole body exercise. This is clearly not the case.

Whichever way you slice it, the heart is a distraction.

rflynnr wrote: »

Even Friel says there's no point in training the heart in isolation

Happy days.

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

I still don't understand the point you are trying to make.

Simply that "cardiovascular endurance" is relevant to performance and can be improved through training. I never suggested training the heart specifically, that was your idea.

DirkVoodoo

Lumen wrote: »

How so? Surely if your heart needed to work "better" during cycling, your body would just increase the heart rate. Which it does, up to a point, until your other systems max out and you have to back off.

I thought this was what Blorg was getting at, that improved cardio vascular function allows you to sustain your maximum heart rate for longer. Look as any unfit individual who has to run laps of a pitch, it isn't their knees buckling or their muscles unable to cope, it is their aerobic capacity unable to meet demand.

I know that the fitter I get, the longer I can run for without tiring or feeling my heart thumping a mile a minute. In fact, I can sustain the same effort and not end up with a thumping chest or bent over in a heap.

Lumen

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I thought this was what Blorg was getting at, that improved cardio vascular function allows you to sustain your maximum heart rate for longer. Look as any unfit individual who has to run laps of a pitch, it isn't their knees buckling or their muscles unable to cope, it is their aerobic capacity unable to meet demand.

No, this is the central misunderstanding. Assuming by "cardiovascular" you mean the heart and circulatory system, then this quite obviously has little bearing on "endurance", in the sense of sustaining a effort for a long time. Do your arteries get tired? Does your heart stop for a rest at the end of the day?

Human metabolism is, at a detailed level, very complex. But, the essential details are fuel (food + fat + glycogen), oxygen (transported by red blood cells) and then the engine of the muscle cells in which all this is converted to motion.

The limiting factor in your average Fred is, I believe, not the ability of the heart to pump blood (which is almost always underutilised), nor the capacity of the red blood cells to transport oxygen (which is not trainable), but more likely things like low mitochondrial density, limited gycogen stores, and poor neuromuscular function.

But you can't feel your mitochondria. You can feel your heart beat faster, and your breathing rate increase, and your legs hurt, so you think "if I had a stronger heart, bigger lungs and epic quads I'd be faster". How many threads are there from cyclists who believe that by lifting heavy weights they will be able to cycle faster with more "power"? This is well known to be nonsense, but people still believe it instinctively, because that's how it feels.

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I know that the fitter I get, the longer I can run for without tiring or feeling my heart thumping a mile a minute. In fact, I can sustain the same effort and not end up with a thumping chest or bent over in a heap.

You are not "bent over in a heap" because your heart or lungs are deficient. It is because you have pushed yourself beyond the ability of your cellular metabolic pathways to keep up, and your muscles are filled with wate products which impede their function. I think that the pounding heart rate and gasping lungs are more likely the body's way of instructing you to "pull up". How else would you know?

Ryaner

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I know that the fitter I get, the longer I can run for without tiring or feeling my heart thumping a mile a minute. In fact, I can sustain the same effort and not end up with a thumping chest or bent over in a heap.

That is a function of your aerobic capacity increasing. As you can take up and process more oxygen per second, your heart needs to pump less blood around thus the lower hr.

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

The limiting factor in your average Fred is, I believe, not the ability of the heart to pump blood (which is almost always underutilised), nor the capacity of the red blood cells to transport oxygen (which is not trainable), but more likely things like low mitochondrial density, limited gycogen stores, and poor neuromuscular function.

But you can't feel your mitochondria. You can feel your heart beat faster, and your breathing rate increase, and your legs hurt, so you think "if I had a stronger heart, bigger lungs and epic quads I'd be faster". How many threads are there from cyclists who believe that by lifting heavy weights they will be able to cycle faster with more "power"? This is well known to be nonsense, but people still believe it instinctively, because that's how it feels.

That was an interesting post and thank your for that. To relate to it subjectively what I am suggesting is that the legs burning and the breathing rate increase etc. are separate things. I used get out of breath cycling without leg burn many many years ago- not any more, leg burn comes first. if I tried to run 10k tomorrow I would almost certainly be fine in terms of breathing and I could have a nice conversation with you (maybe even run faster at a lower heart rate) but I would would not be walking for a week afterwards. I can't claim to know why this IS, this is just my experience.

petethedrummer

Is all this really necessary?

Edit: Apologies, ignore me. My head got a bit melted trying to read this thread.

DirkVoodoo

petethedrummer wrote: »

Is all this really necessary?

This is boards, none of it is necessary.

I got lost in Lumen's detailed explanation and started googling neuromuscular activation, which led to neural junctions and synapse formation, including studies on rats. Then I realised I didn't know what I was trying to say anymore and left. Necessary, hah! But at the time it feels like the fate of the universe hangs in the balance the victor will be lauded with many thanks and referrals to his monumental post in future threads.

I think Blorg and myself are trying to say the same thing, but it's hard to keep up.

Lumen

FWIW (and sorry Pete) here's a link with some more detail (and references).

I was somewhat exaggerating to make the point (no change there) but this part adds some balance:

In particular, long, exclusively easy rides do not appear to effectively promote mitochondrial development and/or bolster the size of one’s aerobic engine. The process of building a bigger aerobic engine appears to be skewed towards an accumulation of high intensity training over time. Eventually though, it is largely the ability to deliver oxygen to our mitochondria which limits the rate at which our mitochondria can generate ATP from the variety of organic molecules that can be oxidized. Without adequate oxygen, the chemical reactions involved in aerobic respiration are impaired. The primary reason our aerobic engines can only be so big is because our cardiac output and our blood's oxygen carrying capacity can only be so good!

At some point oxygen supply becomes a limiter, and at that stage you dope (joke). This backs up the David Millar interview where he said that EPO was only useful for elite athletes.

The next time you are out there training, think about your mitochondria sucking up that oxygen and powering your body. They are your friends

Cute.

pmg001

From what I've been told, the idea of doing a V02 max test and then working out specific HR bands to work at, is that you are making your body more able to work at higher wattages for a given level of lactate production.
I've taken part in a study where I had scans(can't remember what the type of scan was called) of my heart taken over a period of twelve months and the doctor was clearly able to show me the difference in the size of my heart compared to a non-trained individuals heart.
So surely the heart and lungs (ie aerobic fitness?) is the limiting factor as this is what controls the production and removal of lactate in the blood.
I don't think the arguement that because cyclists don't train by running, rowing, whole body exercise etc. is valid because athletes that compete in these sports (rowers and cross-country skiiers) have been proven to be the fittest athletes with the highest V02 maxs recorded.

Or am I completely taking this the wrong way?

Lumen

pmg001 wrote: »

So surely the heart and lungs (ie aerobic fitness?) is the limiting factor as this is what controls the production and removal of lactate in the blood.

I'm suggesting that whilst a strong cardiovascular system (heart to capilliaries) is required for high level performance, the capacity of your heart to pump blood always exceeds the ability of your cycling muscles and associated systems to demand it. I don't know for a fact that this is true, but it accords with what I've read.

I have no idea what the specific bottlenecks are at the local level, but since it's impossible to train your muscle fibres and capillaries independently it's of no consequence.

It is at least plausible to train your heart separately from your cycling muscles (by doing whole body exercise), but this is not common practice, I think for the reasons described above.