Denny_11

I do not often know when or for how long I'll be able to ride. This means I put out max effort for the amount of time I have, or until I simply can't continue. While there are positives to be acknowledged, my issue is that my BPM spikes to 175/180 after a small 10 second increase in power during a ride and will not come back down until I've reduced power to 100 watts or less. This comes to my attention as being abnormal after watching video's of other riders heart rates drop to the 130's while in a group or even while being part of a break away! I assume that there is a proper way to train to allow yourself to hold some kind of pace and still recover? Any idea's or nudges in the right direction would be helpful.

Carbonfiberboy 

Google "heart rate recovery"(HRR). How rapidly your HR recovers from hard efforts is, as you might surmise, an index of cardiovascular fitness. No, there's no trick. It's simply fitness. How to get fitter? Ride more hours. Don't always go hard. Try going moderate on most of your workouts, only going hard say twice a week. That will enable you to ride more hours, which will make you fitter. It sounds to me like you're doing your training on some sort of computer simulation or multi-player site. Try not doing that. Stay in control. Mess with that later when you're fit enough to participate in outdoor group rides and want a little extra indoor work.

OTOH, as your google search will show, really poor HRR is an indicator of an approaching heart attack. You can do some of the tests you find there and see if it seems to you that something odd is really going on. If so, on to the doctor. Cycling's not worth dying over.

redlude97

What is the power your are putting out for those 10 seconds? Relative to your ftp?

burnthesheep

To actually be able to do hard workouts at high % of ftp you need to have some form built up (rest day before) and likely after.

Also, if all you do is hard as you can nonstop for 30min for workouts you’re only going to improve that part of your physiology. You won’t have a nice vo2 engine or base.

Research the word “periodicity” and “specificity” as it relates to cycling.

Read up on a site like Fascat or TrainingPeaks or something. Listen to the podcasts.

For now, choose what you want. Pick a plan or coach to guide that work, and do it. Learn the lingo as you go.

Hint: even in running runners who race 5k’s actually don’t do 5k’s all-out every workout. Actually, they do so rarely.

colombo357

How'd you come up with that number? It sounds like you don't have a power meter.

Numbers reveal everything. A HR monitor isn't all that useful without a power meter, IMHO, due to the huge delay between effort and HR response.

colombo357

Also, to directly answer the question in your thread title, the answer is quite simply to raise your FTP, which includes all sorts of workouts below, at, and above threshold.