The Power of Listening to Your Heart Rate

I'm the heart rate monitor chest strap versus optical measurement police here. So when we're looking at heart rate, I just want to like take a step back and say, hey, is it even valid what you're reading from your watch?

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. Today we're discussing how monitoring heart rate can be a powerful tool if used thoughtfully to guide endurance training and help unlock better performance and smarter recovery. We'll break down when heart rate is your most reliable ally and when it might be steering you off course a bit. So in simple terms, what is heart rate actually telling us during training? Is it effort, stress?

cardio strain, recovery status, what's the best way to explain this to an everyday age group athlete?

Yeah, it is it's a tough one to pin that down if I'm honest Paul because There are lots of different elements in the heart rate that we that we learn and from and you know You kind of alluded to it. It's like it can almost like it can tell you a little bit about your overall stress But then it's of course, we know the job of the heart is to deliver that oxygenated blood to the working muscles, right? so it's giving us an indication of

your aerobics sort of status. But so it has these sort of two elements. Like, you know, if you're stressed, your heart rate's rising, right? Even though your heart rate might be up, well, there's not necessarily, enhanced oxygenation that's needed at that time. So it's a bit nuanced that way. And I think we've talked about this before in other areas. You really need to look at the overall picture before we're really trying to...

tell us ⁓ what heart rate is telling us. So what are you looking at it for, first and foremost? If we're looking at it in a session, we're looking at how much aerobic stimulus, aerobic response you're kind of getting from that session. But those that do math training and have a hard time keeping their heart rate down know that there's probably something else underpinning that that's causing that heart rate to rise. ⁓

telling us other things about the situation. that's a real long-winded way to say it depends.

Yeah.

lol

You know, we always hear about, you know, listen to your body and is heart rate a good way to quantify listening to your body or can it sometimes mislead us?

Yeah, it is a, well, it's helpful. Like it's one of those markers that you should definitely be monitoring. ⁓ It's why, from the simplistic element, we think this is so important in making Athletica a very simple system. And heart rate is one of the foundation, markers that we measure across every single sport. So, so it is very important, but depending on the context.

⁓ of the sport that you're training for. And we have many sports, many endurance sports, whether you're using power or pace. it's critical, but so much context around that. But when you place those little contextual elements, and we can now do this with AI, well, now we really start getting insight into ⁓ what matters. And that's what we're gonna be working on.

further when, ⁓ with, with many of the new releases that are coming out in Athletica it's being beta tested right now by, by our testers. And this is where our, our AI coach comes to life for you and is able to look into your history and is able to give you insight and telling you exactly, you know, what it is telling us about your

⁓ your training, your automatic status, your stress, and your development and your adaptation. So pretty exciting stuff and it's good that we're having this conversation.

Most, ⁓ maybe many master cyclists and runners do their easy days too hard. How can heart rate, especially a cap stay under X BPMs, beats per minute, protect aerobic development and recovery?

Well, first of all, I'm the heart rate monitor chest strap versus optical measurement police here. So when we're looking at heart rate, I just want to like take a step back and say, hey, is it even valid what you're reading from your watch? Like I see so many athletes puzzled because

⁓ That's a good one.

Yeah.

their threshold heart rate is too high or not. Usually athletes, have that intuitive sense where their heart rate thresholds lie. When they join Athletica ours is a little higher than what they think it is or coming from another platform. ⁓ My first question is where is the heart rate measurement coming from?

So if it's optical, it sometimes, especially running, it starts to mix the signal with your cadence. especially after you, you know, you've been running a while and then your heart rate goes over. Like, I don't think there's a set limit what the heart rate goes over, but in my own experience, if it goes over 140, it just jumps up like really high.

Hmm.

⁓ 260 and I'm like running easy pace and I'm like, what? That is not right. So like, first of all, I want people to understand that, ⁓ the optical measurement is not quite there yet. It can throw it off like in lower intensity is pretty good, but higher intensity is it's way off and it can, it can affect your, your data. So garbage in garbage out and,

You know, that's where I would start with. Then, you know, when we're looking at factors that can affect your heart rate, taking that it's from a chest strap, you might be stressed. You might have higher internal response to training because you're stressed out. You had a bad sleep or several sleeps. ⁓ Heat, especially heat. Yeah.

Heat.

⁓ Even nutrition or coffee. Yeah, I got mine here too. And what else? Nutrition status and hydration status can affect the heart rate. So there are lots of other things that can affect ⁓ what you're seeing in your watch.

off he

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

yeah, well, so I just returned from Japan Olympic.

program, that's where I was lecturing just now, just got off the plane. And that was the exact same issue that their practitioners had, Marjaana They were talking about the gigo, the garbage in, garbage out, the chest strap versus optical heart rate strap as well. And they have that same sort of problem. So yeah, like the solution really is if, this is, we measure what matters. Heart rate is a key marker, especially in Athletica.

is if you can afford the, I actually followed Marjaana's advice. She said, I really recommend this Garmin heart rate monitor. It was their latest one. It comes with respiration rate. I've been so happy with that personally. And it's really like, I'm just getting solid heart rate from that chest strap. So it was $175 investment, a little bit pricey, Canadian and.

But it's really made a difference. it's like there's no more funny heart rate markers and whatnot. Everything just really sort of, it's aligned. But like I lock in a power, lock in a heart rate. High power, heart rate goes kind of as I would have expected. And of course, I've seen a lot of these traces. But ⁓ yeah, makes a big difference. And now with what I just mentioned where

AI coach is actually analyzing and assessing these time and zone and these sorts of things, this is really going to start to matter even more if you want a good output from your AI coach talking to you and assessing how you've gone in any given session.

I've even had like weird running sessions where my chest strap ran out of battery and in attempt to not to let my optical measure, I put it over my jacket and it was still measuring something and I suspect it was the cadence. I'm like analyzing the data after I was like, how did it even measure my heart rate? was over a jacket.

Mmm.

I think it's not, I think it has an algorithm in there where it's looking at movement speed and it's basically saying, because I've had similar with when I've just gone without a chest strap, ⁓ same sort of thing. It says it's monitoring heart rate, but I have a feeling that it's just monitoring power in a given duration or movement speed in a given duration and using a predictive algorithm to just put a number out there as opposed to

Okay.

Yeah.

reading zero, which is a bad user experience. So that's my guess. I don't know that for a fact. But I've seen enough data and responses to believe that's how it works. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

So

is heart rate a good way of staying aerobic in a run or a ride?

Yes, now that is great. And I know that we really haven't, we've been step siding around your question, Paul. And that is, I think if we have what MJ and I are just kind of talking about where we've got a reliable marker, we're confident with the marker, we're not using the risk, the risk based ones or whatever, with the infrareds. Yes, it is a, it is a great one. And this is where things like the whole MAF

Yeah.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

really works because we know that when you slow down and you obey that reliable heart rate, then you slowly get better, right? Like you slowly build pace at that lower heart rate. but back to your other question that we step side around, listening to your body should be first thing because you can't go wrong with that. know what I mean? Like listening to body should trump heart rate and pace.

So you do that first, feel always trumps ⁓ any of the markers, but sometimes we need this guidance, right? And this is where Athletica comes in too, right? ⁓ It's a great tool to guide you towards the process that optimizes your health and fitness and performance development. And when you just come out of the gates and you are exposed and you just have like this idea to do a...

a race or get fit and get healthy, sometimes we don't know what to do. And this came directly from Andy Busher, who's my pro athlete, triathlete that won Ironman Lanzarote. Right? So he's, this is right. He said this directly to me. like, it's hard. It's hard for anyone to just know the right pathway. And we need teachers to guide us. And Athletica is an excellent teacher to help guide us with that feel and develop it.

I have noticed, you know, that heart rate seems to work well for the, for endurance rides and runs. ⁓ but I've also noticed that among my Athletica athletes that either ride and run, but that those runners tend to elicit a slightly higher heart rate than for the endurance runs, then cyclists do on their endurance rides. Why, why is that?

Yeah, super question. And I think it relates to ⁓ the body position. So there's a slightly greater need for sympathetic stress to return blood to the heart. So the heart has to pick up and beat a little bit faster to eject ⁓ that blood, higher pressures up to the head, right? So we can't let our head

become low in oxygenated blood. And we know this when we, when that happens, we faint, right? And you think about it in the cycling position, you're kind of, over a little bit and the heart doesn't have to sort of beat as fast to be able to return it back up to the, to the brain. But then in the running position, we're upright and the swimming, the swimming is this exact same thing again, like swimming, you're, you're fully horizontal. And again, the heart rate goes even lower in this for the same given RPE.

So there's that hierarchy in terms of swimming, rowing, riding and running in terms of the heart rate, ⁓ percent of max heart rate ultimately and maximal heart rate throughout all those different things. And it's just due to ⁓ the orthostatic tolerance ⁓ ultimately. it's a gravitational ⁓ effect on that whole process.

Yeah, also, you know, the relative amount of muscle mass that you use from, you know, cycling, you're not using like a lot of your upper body muscles, but in running you are. And then if you add cross country skiing into the picture, it's so much fun. Like when you start

Mmm. Yep.

Thank

you.

⁓ even higher

Boom, that

skiing in the fall again, the first week, your heart rate is like straight up. If you haven't done like roller skiing because it's something new to your body and you're using so much more of your muscle mass that you haven't been, ⁓ you know, leading up to the ski season. But yeah, if you look at, ⁓ let's take the cycling versus cross country skiing, like you're using a lot more of your muscle mass, full body muscle mass.

So high.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And we're alluding to it, but why don't we, let's just get it. Let's just geek out just a little bit. ⁓ Let's talk a little bit about like cardiovascular dynamics, right? Like the whole purpose here is for delivering that oxygenated blood to the whole body tissues that need it as MJ was just alluding to. So we've got those two key factors that relate to what's called your cardiac output. That's the ability of that heart to deliver all that blood.

And it's usually measured in liters per minute, right, in terms of your cardiac output. And in like elite ⁓ cyclists, say for example, imagine like, you know, your top cyclist in the world that's winning Tour de France, this is like 40 liters a minute. That's been measured. So it's huge. And just like to say 40 liters a minute is one thing. But if you actually, I've done this in classrooms where I've stood up in the front of the class and I've taken this bucket of five liters

Basically, it's like a whole bucket. It's five liters exactly in it and I've got another bucket beside it and I pour five liters and I actually like show the process of doing that. That's one minute. So one minute your heart is pumping five liters around the whole body to keep us alive. That's just about every single human. So that's you listening. Five liters is poured and just imagine five, like imagine your milk carton or your gallon, right? It's incredible, the heart is doing that.

Now, this is really, really cool because now I go, okay, now we're going to go to ⁓ exercise, maximal exercise in the average person, 25 liters. So five times. now I pour this bucket of five liters five times to show the ability of that heart to deliver that cardiac output. And the class is like, wow, that was awesome. And then I do it like, okay, now we're going to do it eight times.

you know, Vinokurov or Lance Armstrong or, know, Pocaccia. Like, this is like 40 liters, right? Like this is what their heart can do. And it's just, yeah, it's basically a yeah heart. It's like, it's hard to actually like deliver that much blood around the body in, in one minute. It's incredible, but that's what these guys physiologically can do in, you know, in one minute with their hearts at VO2 max. Phenomenal. just like, imagine the size of the heart to be able to do that.

You bring a fire hose then? ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah.

the strength of that. So heart rate, stroke volume, stroke volume is every beat, and then cardiac output. Those are the three key elements that we're working. And then, yeah, like this is all about heart rate and that's the purpose of that. stroke volume, gets kind of around the same so that we can kind of see like, I think up something like 70%, it's already maximal, and then everything else after that is kind of heart rate.

⁓ So yeah, that's kind of, that's why it's important. So you want at VO2 max that very high heart rate.

But I think that this question is really interesting one and really hard because, know, people, me included, want to be, sometimes I want to be on this upper zone too. Like I know my heart rate and what I should keep it under, but ego comes in and says like, just push it close to the upper zone too. Come on. And it's...

Just recently, I'm like, who cares? Who cares about my pace? Just keep my internal intensity lower. You know this, this is where the gains are happening. You don't have to be pushing it all the time. It's a funny thing, this little ego.

Mm-hmm.

It is. It is. Yeah, no, for sure. It's, but yeah, you're, you're absolutely right. And this is, know, again, I've just, just returned from telling this story to high performance, uh, sporting organizations around the world. And it's like, everyone has the same problem. Everyone has the ego problem, but it's like being able to train easy allows you to do that whole polarization model where 80 % your training's easy. 20 % of your training's hard.

The easy day is easy, hard day is hard, and that's the better road to Rome, ultimately, because you're optimizing your signaling, right? Like the message, basically, that your cells need to adapt, combined with what we've talking about, the stress. The overall stress of the person is controlled, and they're not getting over-trained with that method.

So are formulas, you know, like a math formula, 180 minus your age or 70 % of max heart rate, are those good enough for finding that zone? Or do you think athletes should test and individualize? Or is the answer yes, both?

Yeah, I think it is. It's definitely yes for both. it's kind of like in a perfect world, you'd, you know, with access to a lab and all the money and resources in the world, you'd go get that tested. But the reality is that many of us don't have either resource or ability. ⁓ And so a good starting place is Phil Maffetone's MAF formula. And for anyone that ⁓ is, you know, wants to review that we've had Dr. Phil

Maffetone on the podcast. forget which episode, but you can check back. And he gave an excellent description of what you can do from a practical standpoint to get going on that.

Yeah, it's a good place to start.

So for cyclists with power meters or runners who pace off their watch, when should they prioritize heart rate instead of watts or pace? And when should they ignore heart rate and just hit target power or pace?

Oh yeah, it's a good one. And we did a whole blog post on this and we can link to that one in the show notes, but it was basically, it's like, you know, when do you use power, when do you use pace and when do you use heart rate, and the answer, it would keep it pretty simple, but if any session is zone two or less, it's ideal to use a good reliable heart rate, uh, guide for that coupled with your feel, right? It should be easy, should be steady. And, uh, you know, you've got a great.

Great guide there on your training zones and your power and pace profiles, which dictate your training zones. And then the opposite, the other side, is you should switch that over to pace and power if you're doing zone three and above. Because now it's like, now we want to lock in and we're doing key sets. So it's like we're...

we're kind of in more like the race mode here, or we're shaping our physiology. This is really when we're targeting power or pace. And like I reflect on my partner MJ here, who guides these ⁓ velocity HIIT sessions on a regular basis. And clearly in these ones, we have power targets that she's guiding us through. ⁓

and she can see us all, she knows when people are hitting those targets or not, and she calls us out on them. It's very good. So if you're not on Velocity yet, you should definitely come join us.

There is a, like, I feel like there is a place for heart rate during those hard efforts as well. But as a coach, it takes a little bit of a knowledge of the person, of course, as always. But when I see somebody who's just cranking it out and like working super hard and their heart rate either plateaus

as we go from one set to another, or it starts to drop while they are working super hard. And then I say, Hey, I think you've hit your target. ⁓ Now would be a good time to take a, like a, just rest the next interval that we do and like, see if you want to come back or just like say that this is the day, like I'm done. ⁓ Instead of trying to push through and push through and push through when your body is not.

longer taking it.

MJ, that is just such a beautiful nuance that you just mentioned there you brought out. And I remember the session. I know the session that you're talking to, talking about, I was on ⁓ that ride and I saw exactly what you picked out. It takes a special coach like you to see that though, you know, and it's tough. But yeah, you're right. that, like the heart rate should recover during the rest period. And if it's not,

then that's almost a, it suggests that your whole system is kind of rebelling and it's, know, the stress hormones are kind of all over the shop. They're really out there and they're raising that whole heart rate. And it is a sign, MJ's right, that you should be, it's time to take ⁓ a recovery. And that's what she did with this athlete.

she got the athlete to take one out. So the athlete was doing every second one, which was beautiful coaching. So that was a great one.

Thank you.

You can also tell when an athlete is coming into an interval set fatigued because they can't get their heart rate up and that's another sign. ⁓ I know that heart rate lags the effort. start an effort, heart rate takes a while. What's kind of a rule of thumb for how long that takes for your heart rate to get up there? I it's kind of hard to judge, I suppose.

Hmm. Yeah, I mean, it's what is it like? There's about a 15 to 30 second lag in terms of like it's it's sort of you'll see it slowly start to to meet and that's you know, think about the energy systems, right? You've got the PCR ATP in-house from the cells and whatnot it's able to actually use the energy and then the aerobic system needs to kind of kick in and it's you know, it's opening up the capillaries that are around those muscle fibers and the hearts, you

the whole system's kind of kicking in. Who knows how it all actually works in the end, but it's like, it is that 15 to 30 second lag where it's sort of starting to rise up. And this is back to the importance of the warmup. This is why, again, go to velocity sessions are great examples where MJ has always got us doing ⁓ these little bit of a short 10 second HIITs little pieces. We're gonna do like a 30, 30, say for example, we're gonna do... ⁓

we will do three ⁓ surges towards our target power. And you can just see the heart slowly building back up. But by the time you hit that third one, you're almost like you're kind of hitting more of the target zone. ⁓ to, yeah, like you'll have, ⁓ so actually like a nuanced answer to that question, Paul, is that it takes, it's faster once you're warmed up, and it's sort of slower right in the beginning when you're just starting because of the...

anaerobic resources that we all hold within all of our muscle cells. Yeah, you need to get your aerobic system ⁓ kicking in.

Is there, know, we have the concept of cardiac drift is another element of ⁓ heart rate and looking at heart rate. Can you explain what that is and how it works and what does that say about hydration or fueling or anything else that might be affecting our ride or our run?

Well, I have an example. This Sunday, I did a three and a half hour ride here inside and I closed the door so I didn't have a airflow. So it got pretty hot here. I was trying to keep my heart rate around 120 and then my little flora fan

Damn.

It ran out of battery because the cable didn't work. So it got like, lost, I lost a little fan that I had on. It got super hot. So my heart rate just started to climb and climb and climb more so than like just from fatigue. I was feeling good and I was hydrating well. So it wasn't, I don't think that it was the hydration or fueling.

per se, but it was the increased temperature. heat, heat training and my heart rate like popped to like 125 and power started to, you know, um, get lower and lower and effort higher and higher. So everything was just separating there.

Yeah.

Totally. And that's a great ⁓ example that gives what the body is trying to do, right? Like in that situation where MJ lost her fan use, she's lost the ability to lose heat from sweating. you know, her body is trying to now all of a sudden go to this new mechanism of losing heat, and that's to basically shunt blood to the skin. And to do that...

it's the whole system has to work harder. So ⁓ as evidenced by the fact that she had a higher cardiac drift, so she's seeing a higher heart rate and because the heart's got to work harder just to do both the moving of the muscles on the bike, but also to try to rid some heat to get rid of that. Remember that we've done some of the heat lectures before, heat talks before and the whole, the body's got to protect itself against getting too hot. ⁓

fried egg otherwise that denatures, right? So you'll die ultimately if you get too hot and can't denature those proteins like a fried egg does on a fry pan. yeah, that's, and then the brain will either tell you to go slower or the heart rate drifts up. And the first response we had there was the cardiac drift. So heat is a big one. And then fatigue is another one too, right? Like what I, like,

monitoring some athletes right now that are getting ready for some big races. these are, these are some big gun athletes. That's fun to watch them because as they get fitter and fitter and be more of their key sets towards this, ⁓ these races, their heart rate couples better and better with the power output. All right. So thinking about like, you know, weekend key sessions, right? Where usually it's like mid zone type work. It can be even over and over and under type session.

But if we look from like build week one to build week three or six, these sorts of things, and just like as with fitness and ⁓ just more capacity within the muscles to do their work, usually it's fat oxidation, but it's ultimately that heart rate is lower and lower and lower ⁓ relative to that same power output as you go. there's tighter... ⁓

less decoupling and you'll actually see that as a marker on your Athletica session analysis. You can actually see aerobic decoupling and it's less and less and less and that's ultimately that power and pace is locked right in with heart rate and that's the that's a ⁓ telltale sign of a athlete that's ready to go.

Hmm. Yeah, definitely. Interesting. So if we're working with athletes or if athletes have just heart rate to work with, what's the best way for them to set up their training zones? it a heart rate, you know, using a heart rate you saw once as a max heart rate and using that, starting with the zone two and building from there, how do we set heart rate zones that are

Less is better.

accurate in a way to help us earn our performance.

It's a tough one. mean, again, if we're in the cycling context, ⁓ you might have pace still, which could be, you know, if it's flat out there, it could be something. Or even if you're on a wind trainer with just speed, then, you know, I've done that in some research studies in the past as well. Really dating myself, this is kind of like before power meters. ⁓ You know, you still got... ⁓

Mm-hmm.

You could still look at the speed of the flywheel ultimately down there. That's giving you some indication of how much power transfer you're getting relative to the heart rate. yeah, even, mean, can, Strava even does a bit of an algorithm too, right? Where they're predicting your power on hills. I'm not sure how good it is. There's other means there. Remember, every time we're talking about power or pace, we're talking about an external workload, velocity, how fast you're sort of moving.

And the heart rate were, and we probably missed this in the beginning, but it's an internal stress marker, or internal strain marker. It's looking at inside the body, how stressed or strained the body is relative to its work there. ⁓ So yeah, I guess you would start with that, Paul. You would go hard and try to get to some sort of max levels, or if you know it from the past, I've seen it this high before, and you were pretty confident it made sense.

least fit within the 220 minus your age category. It's not something crazy like 240, which is impossible unless it's an AFib sort of situation. Do you know, Paul? But yeah, ultimately, we can do a max, and we can do a percentage of max. And we also, using our algorithms, we can actually get that threshold heart rate.

Right, basically the highest 10 minutes of heart rate that we see in a valid file, notwithstanding the issues we were speaking about with the optical versus the chest strap.

I would be mindful using max heart rate because most of us don't really know what our max heart rate is. ⁓ I'm dating myself now, but when I did a bachelor in Norway, ⁓ the whole class actually got, we had like, I don't know how many polar heart rate monitors with the chest straps and

Yeah.

you know, we were learning all this how to set zones and stuff. so we went out ⁓ by the school. There's a really ⁓ many long hills, but one of this long hill, we all run there warm up. And then ⁓ our teacher got us to run max two minutes up that hill, come back, repeat that three times. So that, that was like indicator, the highest heart rate.

that we achieved on the third time was our max heart rate. And how many of us do that test? Not many, right? It's pretty brutal. ⁓

Yeah, I like it. That's a good method.

No, you got to be pretty hardcore. Well, although

if you're at the Norwegian sports school, most, I would say 95 % do it.

Yes. Yeah. But as a 20 year old, it was still a pretty hard test back then. But it was a field test that anyone can do. Right? You can do that. Warm up three long, hard efforts up a hill and check your max heart rate.

Yeah, There's lots of ways to get it, right? So, ⁓ yeah.

But

like if you're somebody who doesn't have power meter, do FTP test or follow our instructions for critical power test. And then, you know, pluck that in in Athletica and you'll get your zones. Or if you're a runner, you run as hard 5k as you can and pop is your uncle.

Yeah, for sure. I think if your RPE is towards 10 and you're monitoring your heart rate, usually in a session, then you're pretty close to that max heart rate. And if you're slightly off, you're splitting hairs, as we say. So it should be enough to calibrate your zones and ⁓ know what the red zone is in zone five and threshold zone, zone four and mid zone.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

and take percentages from there. it should be a good starting place with, and again, notwithstanding that feel trumps the heart rate.

You bring a really good point about not worrying too much if it's two, three beats off because it varies. Your heart rate varies day to day. It's not always the same.

Totally, yeah, and as you get fitter, it goes lower as well too, right? And then it plateaus, and then as you get overtrained, it goes lower too, right? Like parasympathetic overtraining potentially is, know, Paul mentioned at one point, sometimes it's hard to get your, athletes who are kind of in the overreaching status to get their heart rate up there, and that's absolutely correct as well too, right? You see athletes that, you know, they're kind of.

Mm-hmm.

semi-overreaching, like they're on the bit. And in that sort of situation, the parasympathetic is always just working really over time, And this is like, you in your 15 to 20 hour sort of weeks, and it's like, just can't get that sympathetic drive to get your heart rate up. And this is often an issue too with not having a good enough taper, right? If you don't taper enough,

then you can't get into that sort of sympathetic overdrive that you need for your races. So be cautious of that. You really should be keeping that training load relatively low in that taper phase. ⁓ When your volume kind of gets down, that should allow you to elicit the sympathetic system, which you need for that cardio acceleration, the higher heart rate that you're looking for on race day. And if it's not, you possibly need to rethink your taper.

I mean, that's a good segue into talking about what are some of the common mistakes you see athletes make. And MJ, you just talked about obsessing over a couple of beats a minute difference. What other mistakes do people make when it comes to using heart rate as a marker of their work?

Optical heart rate monitor. That's one. That's a one big one. And then as I said, like not understanding that heart rate varies from day to day, like stress affects it a lot. And then maybe one more is that they are trying to do their intervals by heart rate. ⁓ And ignoring.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

The heart rate, when you have a heart rate targets on the zone, zone two or aerobic work, always trying to hit that upper zone two.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I'll just add the other one that I see big time in the, it's mostly your community, Paul, the cycling community. And there is a large number of cycling coaches in the world that almost disregard heart rate and don't really feel a use for it. And they, they're just because power is God, right? And it's just, you're really missing the internal load marker in that, if you take that stance.

Granted, I'm all for using power. There's no question about it. But you need to couple it with heart rate as well to get the complete picture. So I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

Absolutely.

Yeah, and I think people do ignore heart rate, but it is such a powerful tool for us, you know, as cyclists to be able to monitor the response we're having to the training. ⁓ And I think I would also add to the mistakes is that we tend, know, athletes tend to freak out a little bit when our heart rate increases in the heat because, you know, it's, that's going to happen. ⁓

as well, because this is just our body trying, as you said, Paul, you know, getting rid of that heat internally. So to wrap up, you know, what, what would be a habit if someone listening today decides I'm going to start using heart rate smarter? What is a habit you would want them to start building this week? MJ, why don't we start with you.

⁓ zone one, zone two, use the chest strap every single time. Like, yeah, every single time. Like if you have a good data, you have better zones. So if you swap between chest strap and optical, the data is kind of... And the AI codes can only see the data. It doesn't have the context of, ⁓ today I'm wearing...

you know, optical and not just strap so like, be consistent.

Yeah, well, MJ got the most important one, right? Because if you've got that, now we have reliable, valid data. And we don't have the giga problem, garbage in, garbage out. We've got a reliable system. And then maybe on top of that, think maybe just making a, like becoming interested in it and actually looking at your response to ⁓ a zone two session. Like, do we have a steady heart rate relative to pace or is pace falling? it?

Is pace holding? Maybe have a look at that aerobic decoupling number. Get a bit interested in that one that's in your summary. And it's like, ⁓ interesting. Because then you know that's really looking at a ratio of external load to internal load, heart rate versus pace or heart rate versus power. And then last but not least, how is that heart rate responding in a HIIT session or a key set session? And just become interested in it and to make some more

just your own personal observations of how you're responding, your heart rate's responding to the work that you're doing.

Mm-hmm. And I think I would add similar to that is, know, pair, start becoming aware of how your heart rate pairs to pace, how your heart rate pairs to RPE, and how it pairs to power depending on what you're using so that you can become better at monitoring your own load and using heart rate as a way of guiding your training.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

That's

really good. ⁓ Let's just go back in there. The RPE and heart rate. And that's where the ego comes in, right? Sometimes when we're running or biking and the RPE starts to like climb. ⁓ Okay, I'm talking about myself. I'm not always honest with myself and I see the heart rate climbing and I feel the RPE is climbing.

Mm-hmm.

But I'm just like stubborn. just want to, I don't know, keep this pace. This is it. You know what I mean? Isn't it funny?

Mm-hmm.

It's just ego, ultimately. You don't want to let the pace slow. You just want to like, okay, this is good, this is good. I'm going to run this marathon so fast. Instead of, okay, I see heart rate is climbing up. I may be feeling a little bit fatigued here. I should slow down, but no. Don't tell me that you haven't experienced this.

Thank you.

and

Yeah.

A hundred percent. No, for sure. Like even today, right? Like, and you know, surely I'll have a bit of experience with all of this, but it's like, it's the forever battle with your ego. And it just like, it's, this is the life process. And yeah, we all deal with it. Every single one of us and, but deal with it. You know, just like, yeah, like record, just be, be present and, you know, aware of those feelings.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

and be aware of that ego and see if you can dial it back, because you probably make progress if you do.

I think I'm gonna put my watch on my back pocket and not look at it.

Hmm. Yeah. Well, lot of my, so both Andy Buescher and Kyle Buckingham did the same thing in, like sometimes they would monitor and whatnot, but they ⁓ would put it away. Like they would just be, they'd have a session where they're just going to do feel, without monitor and they'll give me the data that I'm looking for. And you guys can do the same thing with your AI coach or if you're coached, but. ⁓

Hmm.

Let's just go by RP.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yep, take it away and just go see how the mind goes and then reflect on it later. That's another great learning process.

Yeah. I think, cause sometimes I hear people talk like, ⁓ I can't run with watch or I can't look at the data. just makes me feel so shitty. Like about myself, I'm so slow and like, I think this is a great opportunity to put the watch in the back pocket and not look at it. And then just go by RPE. You want to keep it under three out of 10, right? Like you want to keep it two or three.

Hmm.

and just go easy. I think I'm going to start trying that.

Give it a go.

.

Give

it a go. It's a great one. ⁓ Again, I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy that process too.

Mm-hmm. That's something new for me. So yeah, let's do it.

Nice. I like it.

There

we go.

Well, thank you for listening today to the Athletes Compass podcast. Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. Improve your training with the science-based training platform, Athletica, and join the conversation at the Athletica Forum. For Marjaana Rakai, Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Warloski and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thank you so much for listening.