Heart Rate Vs Power (& what's best for training) 

For older cyclists I believe heart rate should take precedent over power. At 69 I want to know heart rate during a ride. Power only tells me what I cannot do anymore 😆. Very good article and presentation, keep it up and thank you.

The answer is very simple and common sense Heart Rate should only be used during Zone 2 / Base Training. This is because your HR corresponds to the amount of effort your body is putting out. At a low to moderate intensity training, using HR is much more accurate. For example if you are a newbie, 150 watts will bring your HR up to threshold. As you get fitter and stronger, 150W may seem like little to no effort and your HR will only be at Zone 1-2. Your power will always keep improving the more you train, and your HR will remain according to your body's effort and stress response. As for Powermeter, It should only be used during Threshold training, intervals or climbs because you are training your muscles to adapt to a certain power output, build lactate tolerance and increase your FTP, hence training with a PM will be more beneficial but of course, one should continue to monitor your HR for safety reasons. In real world riding, PM is useless if you are jus cruising in the middle of a palaton. Unless you are pulling infront, in a break away or up a climb, thats the only time you should be looking at your PM to avoid getting bonked. I am no way a pro cyclist but im above average. During base rides, I strictly follow only Heart Rate regardless of the power im putting out. In a group ride, I only look at my HR and cadence. During a race, I dont give a damn about all of them and just smash it. Thats what you train for.

It’s always fun to have this conversation. My opinion is both. I have been training with HR forever. I have been training with HR and Power for 12 to 14 years I think. I knew exactly what my HR would be at almost any given HR. For things like TT’s I knew I had to limit my power to “x” regardless of how good I felt because my HR would catch up and maybe go into the red. A year ago I had heart surgery, it changed my resting heart rate and my threshold HR. Some of that was from lost fitness but my heart did change with a repaired mitral valve. A year later I see my HR is higher at certain power levels but I can sustain those power levels longer. I am using HR and power to find my new zones and create new limits. I love to geek out on this stuff. BTW, it wasn’t a specific power setting that told me I had a health problem. It was my HR while on a ride… it went nuts… I took a dozen years of data to my Dr. And the process started to…. Repair me.

Use HR for training and racing do I don’t blow up… PM is there for my ego to look at after the ride! 💪👍😀

I really appreciate this discussion. I use HR exclusively, almost only because of cost though. At this point, even a cheaper power option is gonna be almost a third of what my bike set me back in the first place. I'd rather take that money to maintain the bike. But I've kinda always asked myself how well the measurements work without a constant reference like power, purely showing the output, regardless of my condition on a specific day. I definitely appreciate having this when riding indoors, where I can at least use speed as a reference of some sort, since the conditions are the same on each ride. I'd like to believe, that I've become quite familiar with HR over my short 2 years of riding with the data, but I definitely want to try power at some point. As of now, I almost only use the data to measure my zone 2 in base training and I'm still making good progress while having fun riding, which is my goal no 1 anyway.

EXCELLENT so many of these mistakes as a young kid i made again and again thank you RCA you guys are a one off its time you had well over a hundred thousand subscribers with the top class information you keep putting out happy new year .

i cannot comprehend how power is easier to follow than hr. on the indoor trainer in ERG mode, yeah sure fine. but out on the road my power bounces around 15-20 watts every 3 seconds on a perfectly flat road. i can maintain a constant hr over all sorts of varying terrain

Fairly new to cycling and I’ve been using HR for the past 2 years but now I’ve just got a power meter and what a game changer in training. The information it gives is next level. Using the both of them together is great.

I use both, I find HR doesn’t seem to fluctuate as much as is often suggested, but have seen some instances where it’s really high after a good week off the bike for example. Recently did a physiology test and was advised to train both my LT1 and 2 using over/unders and blocks and HR is really useful for this, interval power can be adjusted to ensure the HR is where you want it to be.

Didn't get back into riding till I was 50. 60 now and still loving it. Your content is awesome, I finally figured out power training and mainly use my heart rate to gauge my fitness, as my HR is affected by so many variables, ie sleep, stress, hydration, energy intake ,etc......anyways, love your stuff, keep it coming. 🚲👍

I dont ride with power except on my trainer and mostly due to cost. The advantage of a PM for me is that I tend to ride to avg speed and on windy days this can be demoralizing. Knowing I am putting out consistent power into the wind is a nice alternative to avg speed.

Very sensible analysis and recommendations. I’ve been using both for a few years now and find that heart rate best describes effort (albeit with the delay) and power best describes performance. Thanks for the video and discussion - these are great!

I have used a Power Meter and have since gone back to a HRM. my racing days are gone and my riding is now more focused on the experiential aspect where holding a sustainable pace is preferred. Heart rate always lets me know exactly how much effort my body feels.

I think the quick answer will always be BOTH, one metric is input and one is output....Looking forward to watching/listening.

Excellent video!

Great discussion, I used to work maily of HR but now my top 3 bikes all have power meters. They are most use in training when combined with heart rate, but I find power data very helpful for pacing a long climb on an outdoor ride. The combined data is useful for general health tracking and indications of over training or sickness. I still use HR to manage my stamina on longer rides due to the drift you show in HR vs power over time.

Nice topic and good discussion; What I missed though are topics like energy systems in our body and scientific data to back things up. Also, as far as I know power meters are only used in cycling so thats why for me it is hard to believe that it's the holy grail. I use both and notice that especially for longer rides I am falling back to HR.

If you don't have a power meter then a heart rate monitor combined with a cadence and speed sensor can work very well. I would do a heart rate monitor on its own.

thank you!

At 61 with lots of experience of 'my body' I think heart rate is sufficient for most training needs. To be accurate though, you need to accurately determine your max heart rate, to work out your zones. You also need to fine tune your zones, over a training period, and these change as you gain or loose 'fittness'.

After 3 heart surgeries (stents) in my 50's, you can bet the only metric I use is HR, and HRV.

Since I have a powermeter I only use the power and RPE (feeling) to determine what to do. Based on my FTP. It feels good that way.

Thanks for the topic, very interesting. One thing that isn't covered in your discussion, and others, is leg pain versus HR or PWR. I have found, after many years on the bike, HR limits that coincide with leg pain (lactate build up I am assuming). I can use the on set of leg pain to know when I am reaching a ride limit that I won't be able to sustain for more than about 20 minutes without backing off. This point is very repeatable, i.e. the heart rate where this occurs is so repeatable that I often don't bother carrying the HR monitor. It would be interesting to hear your opinion on leg pain versus PWR , HR, and the VO levels often mentioned.

Rim = power. Disc = HR. Power shows you what you are doing. HR shows you how much your heart is beating. Take some caffeine etc and watch your HR go 20+ beats higher. HR is like av speed - only noobs and dunning kruger crew care about it. xD IYKYK. WKG is what matters most.

HR is a critical measure especially for older cyclists like myself and several of the commentators gere, however the maximum safe HR for an older rider is tricky issue. I use the 'can still converse without gasping' rule to determine my max HR. However I also have a power meter but do not use it to achieve higher powers per se, but I look at the end of a ride at the correlation of average HR and average power. As I am getting fitter through a season, my average HR drops while my average power rises. I mostly do longer riders of 80 to 120km (and 800 to 1500m ascent) at an average speed of around 20km/h, dropping to 19km/h for rides longer than 120km. I personally had a quad CABG around 8 years ago and I am approaching 70 in the spring so HR is my main focus. .

I've used HR for around 20/25yrs and a pm for only the last 6yrs. When I first got the pm I stopped using my HRM because it was playing up a bit. And used only a pm for a few years. My upper Z2 when fit is in that 200 to 210w zone. The trouble is through autumn/ winter when I get rel. unfit I still like to pretend I'm still in zone2 at 200w's. When actually I'm well into Z3. Good thing about a HRM is it tells me when I'm working too hard on the Z2 rides so I actually get the fat burning benefits.

If you dont have a powermeter, one good way to approximate your external output during your workout is looking at VAM (mean ascent velocity), but ofc that only works on hills. But VAM can be actually very usefull to then calculate your power output after the ride. It also gives you a reference point for your next workouts.. Very windy days can mess it up though, and as I've said, VAM only works for hills and it works better on steady climbs with gradients around 6-12%.

5:02 what is this website? Can we get a video that breaks down all of those different reports? Looks like there is some really cool stuff in there!

I live in a hilly area and mountainbike a lot, staying within power zones are difficult and I don't tend to follow it outside. Great for a structured turbo trainer though

Great topic and good discussion. For Base/Endurance riding I've wondered what ought to take precedence, Power or HR? For example when I go out for a Base ride for a couple of hours, trying to keep constant pedal pressure, backing off up hills and applying pedalling pressure going down, my rides are 65%~68% FTP. Once warmed up the HR remains flat with little movement and staying in Zone 2, but over 90 minutes or so my HR starts to drift slightly out of Z2 so I back the power off slightly to remain below the Z2 limit. Is this the right thing to do or should I just allow the HR to sit in the lower reaches of Z3?

From about 10 mins 30 Ryan seems to be saying that with HR and Power you can adjust your power depending on what your HR is doing, either higher or lower, so in other words, just use HR as your guide, which is what I've been doing since early 90's.

A coffee ☕️ can boost your HR and change RPE of a workout! I've trialled this when doing a zone 2 fasted ride 🚴🏾‍♂️

Great discussion! I do have a question though. I have noticed over the past couple of years a sort of yo-yo thing going on. My HR and my power seem to swap places, back and forth. For several months, my HR will be in the zone for whatever zone I'm training and then it will drop so I have to increase my power levels for training in various zones to get HR back where it's supposed to be. My problem is that I just plain SUCK at FTP tests so I kinda have to fudge the numbers to get my zone 2 where it needs to be. Is this common or am I needing to do more training at higher intensity in order to get better at FTP tests so all the zones match up? I did notice that when I upped my power zones, regardless of FTP test results, every different training session (M.A.P., Zone 2, Subthreshold, etc.) all seemed to be where they SHOULD be, according to my HR. Last year, I plateaued in my training because my FTP didn't seem to move much, and thus, my zone watts didn't move so my zone 2 was more like a REALLY easy zone 1 (read easy spin session). So this year, I'm upping the power a little bit every so often. Am I wrong or just a freak? LOL!

Hi Cam and team, I’m interested to know power numbers for sprinting, more towards winning a bunch sprint in a Crit or road race. I’ve recently started racing crits and riding a lot more on the road bike. Can punch out almost 1600w without having done much sprint work in my riding lately. (Ex Bmx racer so probably still holding on to some watts from my Bmx days.) what sort of wattage could I expect to get to without getting back in the gym?

Power measures output on bike, heart rate is how much that output taxes your body under various conditions. Your aim is to push the same output with as little internal effort as possible. So of course you need both. Also, depending on internal/external condition, same power output put very different demand on your body. Putting out 300W for 2 minutes in perfect condition is very different to putting out the same power output for same period in a super hot day, dehydrated and after 3 weeks of hard training.

And perceived effort....

One thing is that Heart Rate indicates where you have been and RPE is very subjective. Power tells you exactly what you are doing at the moment. You need to use both as discussed in the video. if HR is not within the expected range, something isn't right.

Heart rate drift is NOT a disadvantage. It is telling you that you are fatigued and that you really should ease up a bit on your efforts. A power meter does not know that you have already done 100kms and 2000m of climbing so if you try to pace a cat 2 climb based on power then you die. A HR monitor will always tell you that if you push at FTHR then you are always pushing at optimum effort based on your fatigue level. A human is not a machine where you could just try to hit your FTP.

I ride 4-5 times a week and probably train on my own for three sessions using power, HR and RPE to hit specific training zones. For group rides with mates a couple of times a week I never bother with either, just ride for fun. Power is the cause, HR is the effect.

nah mate, always heart rate (with power as a secondary external expression of what the body/heart is doing), most importantly hr is more holistic in terms of how to body is responding to stress. Its a key indicator of fatigue (something we underestimate when only focusing on performance), everything and I mean 'everything' in sporting performance is centered around the heart; overall health!, fitness, stress, fatigue, responsiveness you know what I mean - it gives us a more complex picture of how the athlete is doing. As an athlete (particularly new athletes), the understanding of the heart and performance is a core skill-set needed particularly for longevity in the sport and preventing burnout -. No power meter when you're running is there? Its the hr that tracks your efforts. Now take that knowledge and understanding into cycling and yes of course power has a role, but ultimately for endurance the heart is the resulting determinate of performance.

Power is an external measure? I may be mistaken here, but I think power is also an internal, not just external representation of output? Power is an external measure based on internal factors. RPE for the win. Any athlete who has been around the "training" block for a while should simply rely on the vitality of the day to dictate training parameters. If you're getting dropped on your favorite climb, or getting blown out during the county line sprint, your meters and monitors can't help you.

If I do a time trial and ignore HR my race will not go well. Training with power is great, but in the end, if I gradually bring up my HR to that threshold range races will be more solid. If I’m trying to get 240 watts where my FTP is, and my HR is redlining that day, good luck. Note about the delay part of HR. if you know where your power/HR is supposed to be, then just don’t exceed that power in the first few minutes. Very basic especially for time trials. If you want to do tempo intervals, then just figure out what your percentage of FTP is supposed to be then go from there

What about whoop? Measuring rest numbers.

The video is a bit confusing to be honest... The conclusion in the end is the right one, but the build up to that is the confusing part. HR is the closest to what you want to know for training purposes : what energy system are you using. That is until continuous lactate measurement will be possible (very soon hopefully). Yes, HR is delayed, so you need to understand what you are doing. Which is where Power becomes relevant. Power is secondary to HR. Like you are saying in the video : HR fluctuates big time day on a day to day base. But that doesn't mean it's "less good" for training. Actually : it's the other way round. If you look at power only or worse, do ERG based indoor training, chances are you are training in the "wrong zone". After a sick week, I'm in the process of doing a simple "ramp up", zone 2. I'm using "Trainerday", an app that can do HR based training. I know what my Zone2 HR is. It's around 120. I'm telling the app : Target HR 120. Get me the power to keep my HR at that. I did this for 5 days in a row now, exactly the same workout : 1 hour at HR 120. The corresponding power numbers are all over the place. Going from as low as 121 average, all the way to 144 average. So as long as we don't have continuous lactare measurement, HR is the indicator to look for, with power as a secondary indicator...

For an absolute beginner, the best measure is perceived effort. Of course, one must be willing to push through what he or she considers working hard.

When I test zone 2 for an hour or more my heart rate stays consistent and does not drift upward it actually drops towards the end. That's with consistent power throughout. Why does it drop toward the end?

Mate, get on the podcast biz pls

For past year my watch thinks I am taking a nap when I am not... As my resting heart rate when not drinking alcohol is 37 bpm... Should I be worried about this? Thank U.

I thought that Z2 training was for the aerobic engine. But if I'm having an off day, or had too much coffee or whatever, and my heart rate is now out of Z2.. then what? Am i misunderstanding Z2 training? It I'm pushing my heart rate too hard to reach a set wattage, does Z2 training based on power even make sense?

If your a beginner just get use to regularly riding

HR is where you get your Lt1 and Lt2 not power.

Still no power meter for me, and probably won’t ever get one, I only have the estimate power on Strava…. But I have used heart rate monitor and still use. But I never really constantly look at the numbers on the computer. But I really ride more on feel, but I have gotten a better idea of my heart rate is at a perceived effort, especially when I have hit threshold or above ( Especially since I paid for a VO 2 test at a University Sports Medicine/ science lab). But I am not training for anything specific, I just ride for the sport/ enjoyment, stress reliever.

answer: both comments: nah this one is more important (long answer since you missed it, either one doesnt give you the full picture. and even both of them dont give you the full picture, you still have to master nutrition)

Why is one tile missing?!?!

If no one’s gonna do it, I’ll take one for the team: 7:28 that’s what she said

I just did a Zone 2 workout on the trainer. Zone 2 for me is 150-200watts. My heart rate was primarily in Zone 3 (140-150 bpm) during this ride. Should I lay off the power and go by heart rate or keep within the power zone and watch my heart rate slowly match?

The last two minutes covers it

Both and neither. HR is a measure of input which, after all, is primarily what you're training. Power is a measure of output. Presumably, I could get the same power, at different effort levels/HR, using different gears. PE is better, but it's subjective and takes time to learn. It's easiest to feel differences around the thresholds. Also, it's delayed, like HR; a hard interval will feel easier at the beginning than the end, easier the first rep than the last. A continuous lactate monitor might even be better, but I suspect it will track much like HR. Don't be a slave to numbers. They're tools, not taskmasters. There are days when a 150HR feels easy and others when a 130 feels like death; similar with power. Listen to your body. Learn to listen to your body. I train by PE. I use a HRM. I run a lot more than I bike. I don't know precisely what my HR zones will be on any given day. Once I settle into a run, I see where my HR is. I only check it periodically, only as a reminder to listen to my body. If it drifts but I feel I'm where I want to be, I don't change. If I check in and feel yeah, I'm going to hard/easy, I adjust my effort.

Power Nob is a better name for the site🤷🏼‍♂️🤣

9:50 WTF? Who sleeps bloody 9 and a half hours?

"For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability." 2 Corinthians 8:3. Never ever put a number on yourself!!!! You can perform beyond your ability!!!

So low HR is bad? I thought that was good?

The majority of people have power meters? 😳

The majority of cyclists most definitely do NOT have power meters. I think you're living in a bit of a first world bubble