 Hey what's up everyone welcome to another video my name is Dylan and I'm a cycling coach at CTS and today we're going to be talking about training with heart rate versus training with power. I'll talk about some areas where heart rate falls short and how power solves these issues but I'll also talk about some instances where heart rate data comes in handy and how looking at heart rate data and power data together can be really useful. The overarching theme of this video as you'll see shortly is why you should be training with power but at the end of the video I'll talk about how sometimes power data can get in an athlete's head and actually be a detriment and I'll talk about who shouldn't invest in a power meter so be sure to stick around for that. If you're new to this channel I make weekly training topic videos going over tips and tricks that I've learned in my 12 years of racing experience that have gotten me to the top of the ultra endurance mountain bike game in the US and as a cycling coach at CTS. I also go into the science and your training questions so if you want to learn how to get faster or just more about sports science in general be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you don't miss anything. If you have a training question or a topic you'd like to see me cover in a future video be sure to leave it in the comments section down below. I do my best to get to all the questions in the comments. I train athletes using both power and heart rate but whenever one of my athletes asks me whether or not they should get a power meter my answer is always yes. In fact I recommend that you upgrade to a power meter before you make any other upgrades to your bike. Man Dylan I don't know power meters are just too expensive and I'm trying to upgrade to a pair of zip carbon wheels. They're supposed to be 10 grams lighter and 3% more aero than last year's model. If you know how to use a power meter it'll make you as a rider significantly faster and fitter while upgrading other equipment on your bike will just make your bike marginally faster. Hmm yeah you know that is a good point but um you know I think I'm just going to get the zips man. Now to be fair if you're just starting to get serious about training and all you can afford is a heart rate monitor then that's a lot better than nothing. Heart rate at least gives you something to base your efforts off of and you can train off of heart rate zones. However there are a few major flaws with training with just heart rate. For starters heart rate can be extremely variable. Heart rate is affected by sleep, fatigue, caffeine intake, altitude, temperature or even your mood. What this means for your training is that even if you're in the right heart rate zone your power could be completely off. People who regularly train with both heart rate and power often find that their heart rate could be completely different from one day to the next for a given effort. Let's look at a quick example from my own training. On this day I was fairly fresh and well rested and I did a five hour endurance ride and my average heart rate was 147 and my average power was 199. Now let's look at a day when I was more fatigued. Same ride five hours endurance and very similar power this one being 205 watts but look at the heart rate I averaged just 129 beats per minute so we're talking about a 15 to 20 beat per minute difference for the same workout on different days. This is the kind of difference that could have you completely training in the wrong zone as heart rate zones often span just 10 beats per minute or less and it appears that heart rate is fairly inaccurate at determining what zone you're actually in. A study looking at power output in stage racing in pro-road cyclists took six subjects and measured their time and zones during a six day stage race. Using a three zone model they found that heart rate underestimated time spent in zone one and zone three so very hard and very easy and overestimated the time spent in zone two. The study concluded by saying that the benefits of measuring workload through power output include better quantification of intensity compared with heart rate measurements. Training specificity can therefore be improved through an optimized monitoring of performance. This gets amplified as you get more fatigued in training because fatigue has a big effect on heart rate. A review on heart rate monitoring during training and racing in cyclists stated that during overtraining maximal heart rates as well as submaximal heart rates may be decreased while resting and in particularly sleeping heart rates may be increased and this is exactly what we saw in my example data. When I was more fatigued my heart rate was significantly lower for the same effort. This is definitely a reason to use power over heart rate for monitoring your intensity but it's also an argument to use both power and heart rate together. A lot of cyclists ditch the heart rate monitor all together when they get a power meter but the heart rate monitor is still giving you some useful data. The article also stated that heart rate may be a better indicator of whole body stress after training or competition and that heart rate is very useful in the early detection of overtraining. How do we put this into practice? Well if you're riding at a certain power number and your heart rate should be this level but it's 10 to 20 beats below that then that's an indication that you're fatigued and you need some rest. This shouldn't be confused however with changes in heart rate as you get fitter. As you get fitter your heart rate for a given power output will decrease over time. However if you go into a hard three day block and you're holding 200 watts at 150 beats per minute at the start of the block and then on the last day you're holding 200 watts and your heart rate is only 130 beats per minute then you're probably just fatigued and you need a rest day. Another thing to consider when training using heart rate is that heart rate lags. Power is instantaneous you start pedaling and you can see exactly how much power you're doing but with heart rate it takes a few minutes for your heart rate to climb and then level out. Because of this using heart rate to pace shorter intervals under five minutes is practically useless and it can also be problematic in longer intervals. Because of the lag in heart rate you could overshoot your zone at the beginning of the interval. Heart rate will also drift up as you ride. This phenomenon is called cardiac drift and according to the same review article cardiac drift can change the heart rate power output relationship drastically especially in hot environments or at altitude. If we take an example from one of my own workouts again we can take a sample from the beginning of the ride and we can see that from this section my average power was 207 and I had an average heart rate of 124. In that same ride if we look at a sample from the end of the ride we can see that my power is almost identical at 208 but my heart rate is 11 beats higher at 135. As far as using heart rate to pace yourself during a race you might as well chuck that heart rate monitor out the window if you're going to use the same data that you use in training. During a race your adrenaline is going to pump your heart rate a lot higher than it normally is. Shoot I'm usually in zone two just standing on the starting line of a big race. I would still wear your heart rate monitor during racing just so you can analyze the data afterwards but chances are your heart rate is going to be much higher than normal so pacing off of it becomes problematic. That being said there's sometimes during a race where heart rate can be useful. For example if you know your max heart rate and you look down and see that you're really close to that max heart rate or at that max heart rate that's a good indication that any second you're going to blow up. This can be even more important when racing in altitude when it becomes even harder to get that heart rate down. Also if you're doing a long race cardiac drift can be an indication of dehydration. A review on cardiovascular drift in prolonged exercise stated that approximately half the reduction in stroke volume which in turn increases heart rate is due to reduced blood volume from dehydration. This is more of something that you might look at in the post race analysis than during the race but if you're racing and you see your heart rate creep up for the same given power output then drink up you probably need it. Heart rate can also be helpful when mountain biking or racing cyclocross when power is all over the place. If you can look down real quick you can get a quick snapshot of where you are and as you race more with a heart rate monitor you can determine whether or not that number is too high or too low. Power on the other hand is an absolute game changer for pacing especially on individual efforts or long climbs. Let's take the 40 k t t for example if you know your ftp then that's a good number to shoot for and guess what it's going to feel way too easy in the first five minutes that's called proper pacing. Without a power meter you can easily overshoot this. You can also use power in road mountain and gravel races as well for example in a road race if you get in a solo breakaway once you're clear of the group you can assess how much further you have to the finish and then determine what power you can hold for that duration. This also works anytime you get on a long climb. I often have my ultra endurance guys shoot for zone three on climbs and zone two on flats during a long race. Finally power allows you to compare your current fitness to your past fitness it's easy to see whether or not you're hitting better numbers than say a month ago or a year ago this is something that you can't do with heart rate. You're also able to compare your power to others this can be both a good thing and a bad thing. If you can get an idea of what power you need to be at to beat your competition for a certain race then this gives you a good target to strive for for example you can do this by looking at the winning time of a certain climb and then determining what power you need to produce in order to beat that time. This can be a slippery slope though constantly comparing your power or your ftp to others can get in your head and start to negatively affect your results and there are so many other factors in a race that affect the outcome other than your ftp. Oh you've got a four watt per kilo ftp yeah man i'm i'm right there too um i just got to lose like 10 pounds and you know just add like 30 watts yeah i'll be there by this summer for sure i like to call it ftp obsession for people who have an extreme type a personality or a perfectionist this can really start to psych you out for these people as much as it pains me to say it you may want to take a brief step back from your power meter and work on your own self-control and realize that not every single workout can be a personal best power day and don't get me wrong ftp is extremely important but obsessing about it and constantly comparing your ftp to others isn't healthy and in the long term will probably hurt your performance also if you just ride for fun and don't compete or you don't take competition too seriously then a power meter becomes much less important if your goal oriented and you like seeing your fitness go up then a power meter will add value but if you're more of the stop and smell the flowers type then there's really no need for a power meter then again if you do stop to smell the flowers kudos to you on making it this far into such a training focused video your internet attention span is truly impressive all right let's review real quick for starters if you can't afford a power meter then training with heart rate is a lot better than nothing but there are a few problems with training with heart rate that are solved when you use a power meter for starters heart rate is extremely variable and is influenced by a whole host of factors this means that you could be training outside of your targeted zone fatigue affects heart rate and using power and heart rate together can give you a good indication of how fatigued you are if you're struggling to get your heart rate up for a given power output then you probably need a rest day heart rate lag during intervals can have you completely overshooting the beginning of your interval and using heart rate to pace short intervals is practically useless heart rate is close to useless for pacing yourself during a race while the exact opposite is true for a power meter using a power meter to pace yourself is an absolute game changer especially in individual events or really long ultra endurance events finally a power meter allows you to compare your fitness month to month and year to year so you can see whether or not you're improving thanks for watching and i hope you guys found this information helpful let me know in the comments whether you train of heart rate or power or both and what advantages or disadvantages you've experienced with each if you like this video be sure to give it a like share it with a friend and subscribe for more training tips if you want to see more coaching content be sure to follow me on instagram twitter and facebook and if you want to follow my training leading into this upcoming season be sure to check me out on strava finally if you're looking for a coach shoot me an email at djohnson at trainright.com