Kinda complicated HR question

lfp

Firstly my HR training knowledge comes from a good few years of athletics training, however, my goal is now football related. My post might be a little light on science but the facts are solid. I could really use some good advice.....

I was very sporty up to 21 or so (athletics and GAA), went astray in mid twenties...... Over the past few years I've been loosing weight and building my basic fitness and playing a bit of football again. While my general fitness was improving I wasn't feeling up to pace in GAA matches. I had no gears or Turbo for want of a better word. Guys I'd easily beat in fitness tests in training were just quicker than me. Not just basic sprints, but I'd be less fatiqued in matches, but they'd seem sharper. I kinda put it down to loss of speed with age (31), but, I've done some sessions recently with my HRM which shocked me.

Here are a few facts from recent enough fitness assesment.
Max HR - 196
An Thresh - 169/170

The sessions I did recently were hills (100m+) and short intervals - 150's 200's. I would have done these 10 odd years ago in fitter days. My times are now slower, but what concerned me was that I couldn't get my HR up during the session. 10 years ago my hills would have gotten to low/mid 180's and high 180's/low 190s for the 150/200's. Now I can just about get the HR into the 174 area for the hills and only scrape to 179 for the 150/200's. My receovery HR is actually lower now. I just can't put the foot down and get the HR up to the 180's. You could say age has reduced my max HR since 10 years ago, but I know it's currently at 196, so 180+ should be easy to avchieve.

I know enough to grasp this and see the body is definitley lacking a type of fitness, but I don't know the exact science or how to get myself back to higher HR "Turbo".... If I did these sessions and the HR was getting close to previous years I'd just say I'm not as fit and the speed has gone - such is life. Whereas the fact I'm 10+ bpm off previous efforts I really feel like there's something there but I just can't seem to get the body to engage and push onto the higher zone. I really feel like if I could get the body to push from 180 to 190 on a 200 then I'd knock a second or two off each rep - without it being a speed/fast twitch thing.
I know I've explained this badly, any help/experience would be appreciated.

RoyMcC

OK, I'll have a go - even though I'm rubbish at science and frankly can't be arsed to fiddle around with HR zones and such.

But I think you're correct in saying that HR does drop over time; also that it's actually near impossible to hit max HR in training. (In my experience a hard 350-400 will bring it as near as you'll get.)

But my main observation is - why are you using HR as the key to engaging your speed, or 'turbo' as you call it? By your own admittance you are as fit as a flea as far as aerobic fitness is concerned. If (as I read it) you feel that you are losing sharpness then you need to be now concentrating on explosive work. Sprint drills, plyometrics, short (30-40m) reps. Then you start allying your natural good conditioning with your fast-twitch muscles. You'll be flying.

Btw, 31 is not an age where you ought to be thinking you're over the hill :pac:

Sorry if I've misinterpreted your post in any way.

lfp

Thanks for the input RoyMcC. Good observation on why am I using HR as a tool in my speed training. It was more a case I threw on the HRM for these sessions to see how quickly/slowly I would get my HR to recover, it was more by accident that I put 2 and 2 together on the high HR aspect of the sessions - I usually wouldn't have been to focused on that figure. If it wasn't for the fact I had old training diaries from 10 years ago I wouldn't have been sure there was a gap of 10-15 bpm.