What reference do I take to determine the training zones?

Determine training zones

Maximum heart rate, threshold heart rate, maximum and minimum heart rate, threshold heart rate and maximum heart rate are the different references that coaches take to later determine the training zones when we work by pulsation with our athletes.

Luckily, if we work for power and for rhythm in sports where this is possible, is the functional power threshold and the functional rhythm respectively, based on which we can determine the training zones.

Faced with such a disparity, however, the following questions should be asked:

• What magnitude would be the best to be able to work with the greatest possible precision?
• What devices do I need or in what circumstances should the different activities take place to use one method or another?
• What do I need to know in order to determine training zones?

Because, as I wrote in the previous article, our training must be framed in a certain context and that context is the one that will imply more or less suffering for a certain physiological or performance value.

Power, pace, speed or heart rate?

Choosing one parameter or another is a simple decision. If the sport we train has at its disposal potentiometers or power estimators such as the Stryd potentiometer we will use, without hesitation, the threshold of functional power. Determined through a simple field test, it will give us an idea of the athlete’s performance and will allow us to determine the power values in which we will be working on recovery, extensive and intensive aerobic work, lactic tolerance or competition pace, the VO2 max and the lactic and alactic anaerobic rhythms, that is, the typical training zones.

In the absence of a potentiometer and since the environment in which the sporting activity takes place is very stable (running on the athletics track, running on the flat, swimming, rowing and canoeing in calm waters, athletic walking and the like) it is possible to use GPS or devices speed or rhythm measurement so that, once the functional rhythm has been determined (the equivalent of the functional power threshold), you can also obtain the ranges of the intensity zones and be able to carry out the training sessions.

It should be added that, if the place where you train is a swimming pool, a perfectly defined water surface or an environment in which we know the exact distance partially and totally, we can also work with rhythms with a simple chronograph without GPS.

Finally, if none of the three previous circumstances occurs and we have no other choice, we will use the heart rate.

The reason to choose power first, pace or speed second, and heart rate last is due to stability and ease of data collection. I am going to put it with an example that will be quickly understood without going into the reasons why the heart rate presents such variability.

If you climb a climb at full speed with your bike training and your functional power threshold is 300 watts, in the race it will continue to be 300 watts or at most, thanks to the over-excitement of putting on a bib and the rest of the previous days, it can reach rise slightly by a value that will hardly be higher than 2-3%.

If in that same port you look at the average speed that you get training hard and competing at the same time, the difference will also be miserable and caused by the same reasons as the previous increase in power.

On the other hand, if you value the heart rate obtained by training or competing, you may find abysmal differences, making it impossible to maintain a heart rate while training which, in competition, even allows you to discuss the play with your teammate. That is to say, it is usual that there are even zone jumps for the same value of subjective perception of effort.

Summarizing what would happen is that training I go to 165 beats to be able to sustain the 300 watts mentioned and maintain an average speed of 25 km/h and competing I go up to an unheard of 180 beats that I am not even remotely capable of sustaining and sometimes not even reaching that they do not allow to go beyond the same watts and speed.

Power and functional threshold power

If we have the possibility of enjoying the use of a potentiometer to carry out our training sessions, the first thing to determine is the functional power threshold. This is by definition the maximum power peak that can be sustained for one hour.

To obtain the magnitude of this important reference value, we can analyze the file of any competition we have done recently, look for the 60′ peak power (P60) and start with that value if we are too lazy to perform one of the typical power tests. ftp.

Ideally, however, the competition from which we extrapolate the FTP value would be a one-hour time trial, be it running, cycling or whatever sport we have the potentiometer for.

If you are not sure that this value is really the value that we can sustain for an hour at maximum effort, it is best to carry out a test. And we won’t do this at 60′ since psychological factors will weigh heavily on the final result, not to mention the harmful effect on the execution of the training plan that involves doing a 60′ test at the top.

For this reason, tests of 20 or 30′ to the maximum, subsequently applying a correction factor to the obtained average power value of 0.95, is the most common.

It will be from this value that we will be able to determine the training zones and that, depending on the author of reference and even the computer program that we use, it will oscillate up or down in small differences.

It should also be remembered that the functional power threshold value will be the value that will be used by the computer program that we use for the analysis of our training to determine the stress factor of the sessions and subsequently build the performance management graph (PMC) of TrainingPeaks which I have already talked about in previous articles.

Both reasons are reason enough to schedule tests regularly and adjust the FTP to the moment the athlete is.

Pace and threshold pace

As with power, the first thing we should determine when buying a device with GPS is to know our threshold pace. This is the speed or rhythm that we can sustain for an hour. For obvious reasons a stable environment is needed. Imagine doing a pace test downhill with a bike or swimming or rowing in a river with a current in favor. Obviously it would not have any validity for later use, although our device will probably register it as a personal record for that distance.

The best way to establish this reference pace would be, for example, in athletics, through a race that was closest to 1 hour. In the case of most mortals, a race between 12 and 17 km would be a good distance and if we talk about the alien Kipchoje, he would need a half marathon probably.

If you don’t have a race of this type at hand, you can opt for a test like with power. A 5K would be ideal and then apply the correction factor of 1.15 if we calculate based on pace or 0.95 if we calculate based on speed.

In swimming, a 1000 m test could be carried out. To establish the threshold rhythm, taking into account that the way we do it will validate the rhythms carried out in training with the same circumstances. That is to say, it is not worth determining the rhythm if we go with neoprene, in a 50 m pool. and/or following someone else’s footsteps, since it will give us an overestimated value of our real capabilities.

In similar sports that meet these high stability characteristics, the idea would be the same for everyone. Threshold test of a time less than what is supposed to be the peak rhythm of 60′ with a correction factor and later establishment of work rhythms.

Lastly, it should be added that, as with power, this rhythm is also used as a reference to determine the stress value of each session, specifically the rTSS, with which again, a regular schedule at various times of the season is essential.

Heart rate, maximum or threshold?

Finally, heart rate would be the penultimate resource to use to determine the different intensities in training. And I say penultimate because there would only be going for sensations exclusively and here we do lose a lot of things along the way and the possibility of closely monitoring the athlete.

When we work by heart rate we can use two reference values:

1. The maximum heart rate.
2. The threshold heart rate.

In the second case it would be the equivalent to the threshold rhythm or the functional power threshold. Like them, it will give us an idea of the different work zones by pulsations and, in turn, will be the reference for calculating the hrTSS (the hr subscript refers to the English acronym heart rate or heart rate in Spanish).

Personally, for the reasons I mentioned above, I prefer to use the maximum heart rate value. Its variability is less and therefore, when determining the training zones, it is more adjusted to what I really look for in a given work session. It is important, however, to have a more or less adjusted figure for the heart rate threshold, since it will be with this value and not with the heart rate that the software will calculate the hrTSS value.

To find out both values, in the case of the threshold heart rate, a test is carried out very similar to the previous ones for rhythm and power. This determines the reference value from which the zones are configured. It is not unreasonable to work with two different zone tables depending on the degree of activation/motivation of an activity. In other words, we can calculate the heart rate threshold while competing and determine the heart rate zones to be able to perform the race management and we can calculate the heart rate threshold while training and determine the same zones with lower heart rate ranges to be able to train the different metabolic pathways.