Listen to your heart. This is not just a song title, but also an important piece of advice when it comes to your triathlon training. In this episode, host Andrew Harley interviews TriDot Coach and exercise physiologist, Jeff Raines, and coach and biomedical sciences expert, Ryan Tibball. While measuring your heart rate may not be the hottest new trend in training or technology, there are so many aspects of understanding this metric that are important for training and racing. Jeff and Ryan break down heart rate training zones, decoupling, and different devices for measuring heart rates. They also discuss heart rate variability and its uses. Big thanks to Precision Fuel & Hydration for partnering with us on this episode! Head over to precisionfuelandhydration.com and check out the Fuel Planner to get your free personalized fuel and hydration strategy. Use the code TRI10 to get 10% off your first order. We are thrilled to have sailfish as the swim partner of TriDot Training. Head to sailfish.com to scout out your next wetsuit, swimskin, goggles and more! Use code sfc-tridot20 at checkout, for 20 percent off your new wetsuit. Participate in Triathlon Research! The Preseason Project® is a triathlon research initiative that helps us quantify and enhance the performance gains that TriDot’s Optimized Training™ delivers over training alternatives. Qualified participants receive 2 free months of triathlon training. Learn more and apply at: https://psp.tridot.com/psp23pod/
TriDot Podcast .178
Listen to Your Heart: What Your Heart Rate is Trying to Tell You
Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.
Andrew Harley: Welcome to the TriDot podcast! Today we’ll be venturing into the land of heart rate zones and beats per minute, bravely exploring the things our heart is trying to tell us from moment to moment as we work out. Joining us to talk through all of this is TriDot coach Ryan Tibball. Ryan has a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from Texas A&M University, and Respiratory Care from U.T. Health Center at San Antonio. He serves as the head Power Cycle coach at Life Time Fitness, and is a certified CrossFit coach and a Pose Method certified run coach. Ryan is a multiple-time Ironman finisher and has been coaching with TriDot since 2015. He is even more involved with the TriDot team now as a TriDot Business Coach, in helping match coaches with TriDot athletes who want a coach, how ‘bout that! Coach Ryan, welcome back to the show!
Ryan Tibball: So excited, Andrew! Ready to give all my heart into this episode, maximum effort. I can’t wait for what Raines has to say!
Andrew: Me too, because also with us is Coach Jeff Raines. Jeff is a USAT Level II and Ironman U certified coach, who has a Master of Science in Exercise Physiology, and was a D-1 collegiate runner. He has over fifty Ironman event finishes to his credit, and has coached hundreds of athletes to the Ironman finish line. Jeff has been training and coaching with TriDot since 2015. What’s up Jeff!
Jeff Raines: What’s up Drewski! You know, with a title like “Listen to Your Heart”, we should have had the Roxette song playing in the background during this.
Andrew: I’m Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always, we’ll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our main set topic, and then wind things down with our cooldown.
Have you planned your nutrition strategy yet for your next race? If you are in need of some help, our friends at Precision Fuel & Hydration provide education, tools, and products to help you personalize your fueling plan. Precision Fuel & Hydration works with some of the best triathletes in the world, and their products are used by elite athletes at the PTO Tour races. You too can refine your hydration and fueling strategy just like the pros. If you can’t get to one of their sweat testing centers, use their free online Fuel and Hydration Planner to get a personalized race nutrition plan, and from there you can book a free one-on-one video consultation with their athlete support team to start refining your training and racing strategy. Don’t forget, TriDot listeners get 10% off their first order of electrolytes and fueling products by using the code TRI23 at the checkout.
Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.
Andrew: There are tons of items on the market that triathletes can use to fuel with, swim with, bike with, run with, recover with, and accessorize with. Not everything on the tri market will fit our tastes and needs however, so with that truth in mind, what is one triathlon item that – on principle or maybe just preference – you would refuse to use even if it was given to you for free? Coach Ryan Tibball, what is this for you?
Ryan: Man, that’s a really good question. You know what, I’m a no to buoyancy shorts. I feel like it’s a band-aid to an inefficient kick and body position in the water. It is one of those things, as we’re learning to swim and really working on proficiency in the water, I think using buoyancy shorts really throws off your balance tremendously. I’ve actually had first-hand experience seeing that in swimmers, and as soon as I took those shorts off, I have seen such a marked improvement when not using them. So there’s my answer.
Andrew: All right, so if someone with one of those neoprene brands came to you and said, “Hey Ryan, we want to make you the poster boy for our buoyancy shorts, here is a bunch of money to sponsor them and use them,” you would say, “Nope, I am a no-buoyancy-shorts guy myself.” Okay, I respect that, I get that. Coach Jeff Raines, what is this answer for you?
Jeff: I think I’m also going to dabble here in the swim category, I’m going to say swim caps. I’m an advocate of them – I wear them in the race, I always wear them in open water for visibility and safety – so I’m not knocking that by any means. But just everyday swimming in a pool, I do not wear them. I don’t know if they bother me, I know they help me cut through the water, probably shave a second per hundred and all that, but day-to-day training, I just don’t wear swim caps.
Andrew: For me, this answer is Maurten gels. This is a really simple, “It’s not them, it’s me.” Maurten gels are great, plenty of people use them successfully at the races and in their training, obviously they are the official gel on course at Ironman. So with that in mind, when I was getting ready for Ironman Waco I was like, “Let me get a sample pack of Maurten gels and see if I like them, because if I like them I don’t have to carry my own gels on course.” I got that sample box in, went to knock back that very first Maurten gel, and – here’s the thing y’all, I have a decently sensitive gag reflex. I was the kid who had to have laughing gas at the dentist to get through a dentist procedure. I’ve largely outgrown that for the most part, but something about those Maurten gels, and that chunky jello consistency they are, just totally, instantly, it hit my mouth and I instantly was gagging on the bike trainer in my pain cave. I could not get it down. It’s not them, it’s not their fault, it’s my fault. If you use those, good for you. I’m going to stick to my Precision Fuel & Hydration PF 30 gels myself. At Ironman Waco, I even at one point took one of the Maurten gels on course. I grabbed it from an aid station. I knew I was about four or five miles away from the personal needs where I had more of my own gels, so I was like, “Let me grab one of these just in case I might need it to get back home.” I never even used it, because I knew if I tried it would not go very well. That’s it for me. You could give me a whole box of those things, and I would be taking it and regifting it to somebody else.
Ryan: I was gonna say, I’ll take them!
Andrew: I’ll keep that in mind, if someone ever comes along with a dump truck of Maurten gels, I’ll send them to your house and not mine. Deal.
We’re going to throw this question out to you, everybody, on the I AM TriDot Facebook group. Make sure you’re a part of that group. We have just thousands of athletes talking swim, bike, and run every single day of the week in that group. Every Monday when the new show comes out, I pose the warmup question to you our audience. So check out the post asking you, if you were given a triathlon item for free, what is something you would just refuse to use, because it just doesn’t quite jive with who you are? I can’t wait to see what you have to say.
Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…
Andrew: We are thrilled to have Sailfish as the swim partner of TriDot Training. Sailfish was founded in 2007 by Jan Sibbersen, who was on the national German team, and is the fastest swimmer to ever hit the waters of Ironman. The Sailfish mission is to create premium triathlon and open water swim products, and with the Kona course record holder personally testing everything they make, you know you are getting something special when you order from Sailfish. They certainly offer swim skins, tri suits, and swim accessories, but the core of the Sailfish product line are their award-winning wetsuits. Sailfish wetsuits are truly made to make you faster. That certainly has been the case for me. I’ve swum in many different brands of wetsuits over the years, and my Sailfish is the very first one that I put on, got into the water, and clocked swim splits I had no business hitting on my own. With several models and price points, there for sure will be a Sailfish wetsuit that is right for you. So head to sailfish.com to check out all the neoprene goodness.
Whether you’re training easy, training hard, recovering easy, or recovering hard, your heart is right there, beating all along, pumping blood, doing its thing. It’s always up to something. If we pay attention, our heart is always trying to tell us something, so let’s talk to Coach Jeff and Coach Ryan and find out just what it’s trying to tell us. Let’s start nice and easy with our most relaxed heart rate possible. Guys, let’s talk about our resting heart rate, and what fitness implications are there for this number? Coach Jeff, what is our resting heart rate, and what’s it trying to tell us?
Jeff: Yeah, this is a deep episode, and I like that we’re kind of easing into some of this deep stuff. Like you said, our hearts are always beating. We’re always idling, the ignition is never turned off, so you’re right, our heart rate is always telling us something. Our heart rate in general is the number of times that our heart beats per minute. It can be measured manually at the carotid artery on the neck, the radial artery on the thumb side of the wrist, and also with heart rate monitors. Most resting heart rate norms are in between that 60 to 80 range for the average healthy person. Obviously we’re all triathletes here, and we tend to be fitter than the average norm, so most of us see a lower resting heart rate. Our body is doing less work at rest to maintain normal metabolic functioning, and it’s more efficient in doing so. Just a quick science nerd-out for a brief second here –
Andrew: That’s the point of today, Jeff, I want to learn all we can about heart rates, so please take us into the science lab and nerd out for us.
Jeff: Let’s do it, all right! Well, let’s start with red blood cells. These red blood cells, they must load up appropriate quantities of oxygen to send to our tissues that are performing a certain activity. The heart must then pump those oxygen-rich red blood cells to those tissues, and it’s got to do that rapidly enough to deliver the required amount of oxygen. In the tissue cell, the mitochondria, oxygen is required to make ATP, ATP is then used to fuel the activity. ATP is energy, so to speak. So our heart rates will vary from person to person, depending on the intensity, and also the energy requirements of a given activity. So the fitter that you are, the more cardiovascular exercise you do, then the less demand there is to maintain that normal metabolic functioning at rest, and hence a lower resting heart rate.
Ryan: Interesting.
Jeff: Now how much cardiovascular exercise one needs depends on their individual goals. I like and use, and in graduate school referred to the most, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), also the American Council of Exercise (ACE). They recommend 20 to 60 minutes of cardiovascular exercise, anywhere from three to five days per week, just to maintain general health. ACSM also says that despite the well-known benefits of being healthy, lack of physical activity is a global pandemic, and it has been identified as one of the four leading contributors to premature mortality. This lack of physical inactivity, it’s a pandemic across the world. So understanding how much physical activity we need, and also understanding how the heart works, is crucial for us as triathletes, but also for everyday life, being healthy, living longer.
Andrew: Hearing all that, it’s very interesting, my resting heart rate – and I should have just taken a fresh look at it before we recorded this – but typically whenever I do glance at it first thing in the morning, or when I’ve been sitting for a while, my resting heart rate is in the high 50’s I believe. My wife has always prided herself on the fact that her resting heart rate is typically a few beats lower than mine. I obviously do a lot of cardio and a lot of triathlon training, and she does beach body workouts, but just despises going for a run or anything cardio-related. So that’s always been a point of bragging for her is like, “Look at all this training you do, and my resting heart rate is lower than yours.” So Jeff, are you implying that my wife’s base fitness is better than my own?
Jeff: Could be, right? There’s the famous “it depends” answer. Body type, genetics, a million other external factors play into that, that I’m not sure we’ll talk about later on. Body size in general, it might have a higher demand to maintain that normal metabolic functioning. But if she trains and is very efficient and very fit, and maybe you not so much currently, then yeah, the answer could be yes, and it could be no.
Ryan: Hey, great question, and you know I always appreciate the nerd-out moments from Coach Raines, and it does save me some words here. He really did knock that one out pretty well.
Jeff: He covered it so well, Ryan Tibball can just sit there, drink your coffee, relax, stay in Zone 2.
Ryan: This is a great cup of coffee. But I will add, as you become more cardiovascularly fit, your resting heart rate can and will typically lower. This is significant of obvious improved cardiac function, i.e., cardiac output. We all kind of geek out on that, as I do some cardiopulmonary exercise testing on the side, and it is so fun to really see the entire picture when we do these testings. But just like everything else in our body, the heart is a muscle, and it really needs that workout to strengthen. The associated improvements leads to improved stroke volume per heartbeat, the squeeze of that blood through that heart. Also we mentioned, alternatively, if you are not a well-conditioned athlete and your resting heart rate is below or even above normal ranges, you may want to consider seeing a physician. Get checked out before beginning any regimented exercise program. It’s ideal to just find that baseline, and then you know where to begin. Then as you’re beginning this process, as an athlete you can reflect back and say, “Hey, wow, this is where I was, and look where I’m at now!” Just putting that in perspective.
Andrew: the other side of the spectrum is our max heart rate. I hit this at the end of my 5K time trials. Usually I’m starting to see spots those last 0.2 miles of a 5K time trial as my heart rate peaks at 189 to 190 beats per minute. What is the significance of our max heart rate?
Ryan: Well, max heart rate by traditional standards is 220 minus your age. However, many well-conditioned athletes can go above the theoretical max. In fact, I have often exceeded this at 5K’s as well, like you Andrew. In general it’s hard to sustain your heart rate above that theoretical max for very long, or sometimes even at all. To your point about seeing those spots Andrew, there is a natural association in blood pressure during exercise as well. It increases, that is that response that your body wants and needs to do, hence the reason you may be seeing spots, or perhaps your spirit animal. I still remember going into the 190’s in some of those 5K’s back in the day, even sustaining a heart rate in the 170’s during half marathons. I have to say those were the good old days for me, and I’d love to hear Raines elaborate even more on this as well.
Jeff: Yeah, I have administered many VO2 max and sub-max tests back in the day, and I participated in them as well. I remember the highest heart rate I’ve ever seen, back in my glory days after collegiate running, I remember holding a 208 heart rate for a couple minutes at the end of a test one time. Now I would see spots going there, digging deep. But you use the word “theoretically” in association with max heart rate. I’ll elaborate just briefly. Theoretically, max heart rate is associated with one’s age. When we’re born, our max heart rate is around 220 beats per minute, and each year of life, the max heart rate tends to reduce by about one beat per minute. So theoretically, by age 20 our max heart rate should be around 200. That Karvonen Theory of the 220 minus your age is where that comes from. There are updated and more precise equations that that. One is called the Gellish formula, it’s your max heart rate is 207 minus your age multiplied by 70% [HRmax = 207 - (0.7 x age)]. That tends to get a little more accurate, but each person is unique and has their own unique fitness levels, their own strength, heart size. Tons of other factors play into why these numbers can vary up to about 10 to 15 beats per minute within different individuals of the same age. Max heart rate is a really cool factor that I use. Let’s steer it towards us as triathletes and training relatively vigorously or consistently. I monitor the max heart rate during the testing, for example your bike test, as a sign of strength. Some people starting off don’t have enough strength to keep tension on the pedals for long enough at high efforts to let the heart rate go high. Their physical fitness fails before the capacity of that heart rate to hit a max number.
Andrew: That is me on a bike, Jeff. That is me.
Jeff: As you build strength, as you have more consistency, you will be able to keep that tension high enough for long enough. The goal is to get as many watts on the average as we can for that 20-minute bike test. But there are also goals within that. Let’s get a new max heart rate inside of that. I’ll say, “What was your max heart rate of the test from four weeks ago? Okay, you hit 180, well let’s try to hit 180 by minute 17 or 18 this time, and then hang on a little bit longer, maybe get a new max heart rate personal record inside of that test.” That’s not the main goal, but it is a tool that you can use inside of that, and it’s a sign of added strength as well as fitness. It’s kind of cool to play around with that sometimes.
Andrew: Jeff, you mentioned right there that, throughout our lives there are things happening in our body, changes in fitness, that cause our max heart rate, our resting heart rate even, to change over time.. I’m just curious, as athletes go through the course of their lives – and then for male and female athletes, you mentioned some of it can be biological or genetic – how can we expect to see our max heart rate or resting heart rate change over time as we age as athletes?
Jeff: That’s a good question. I think going from adolescence, an infant even into adulthood, there’s a different goal of the body as it relates to physical fitness components, in that it’s health-related versus skill-related. I’ll elaborate. In the beginning, we’re simply trying to develop and create health-related physical fitness components, then we progress into that skill-related physical fitness. As a baby, child, or adolescent we’re still developing, and our overall fitness components are developing. General respiratory endurance, body composition, muscular strength, it hasn’t even been established yet, so we’re just trying to establish these things like muscular endurance, flexibility, a ton of things. As we progress later on, we’re trying to build a skill set around those physical fitness components, and we switch into developing coordination, agility, balance, power, reaction time, speed, and all those skill-related physical fitness components. So during cardiovascular exercise, the heart must pump blood to the large muscles in the body. When a person is moving in a rhythmical pattern continuously for a period of time, the duration depends on an individual’s ability to sustain that activity, and that’s where fitness comes along, and building that fitness greater than just the average norm or general health.
Ryan: I will also add, over the course of our lives, our theoretical max attainable heart rate declines proportionally. As Coach Raines mentioned earlier about our max heart rate values, the formulas to calculate are dynamic, depending on several factors. Gender, age, your level of fitness, etc., many factors go into that. In past studies of the differences between males and females, females do have a tendency to have a higher heart rate in general, physiologically speaking, because of their size in comparison to males. I know you mentioned earlier, Andrew, your wife often brags about having the lower resting heart rate –
Andrew: She also has a higher max heart rate, so she just has a broader range all across the spectrum.
Ryan: Yeah, so is she interested in having a coach? You need to get her going, man!
Andrew: She could be an amazing endurance athlete, sure!
Ryan: Absolutely. I’ll use this as an example. There is generally no significant difference in cardiac size between males and females until the onset of puberty. After puberty that changes, and generally results in males having slightly slower resting heart rate than women in comparison. Hormones obviously play a role, and that is something that we can go real deep into the weeds on for this, but to even go a step further, after menopause, there is no significant difference, which suggests a strong connection to estrogen according to ongoing research that is out there.
Andrew: I think a big question for a lot of us, especially once we’re on multiple apps that give you a heart rate zone, is how are these heart rate zones even determined? My Garmin thinks I’m in Zone 3 at 150 beats per minute, but TriDot tells me that’s still my Zone 2, and I’m sure Strava and Zwift might say something entirely different. WHOOPers probably swear by whatever their WHOOP zones are. What app are right, and how do we actually know what our heart rate zones are?
Jeff: This is the million-dollar question, we get this a lot, like, “Who do I trust? Which one do I go off of? Why does this entity have six or seven zones, and this one only five?” Stuff like that. First of all, a lot has to be considered when establishing and monitoring these heart rate zones, but whatever you’re using or following, just know that those zones also change regularly as your fitness improves or disproves, it’s constantly changing and adapting. But heart rates can be increased by a number of things, zones can be affected and changed, such as by hot and humid temperatures, an individual’s skill level, their body mechanics, genetics, altitude, medications, lack of sleep, stress, caffeine intake –
Andrew: That’s a lot of factors already, yeah!
Jeff: We could go on and on, right? So really, a lot of scholars recommend throwing in the RPE scale (rating of perceived exertion) inside of those zones and how you’re feeling inside of those zones – the old Borg scale, that scale of 1 to 20 on a rate of perceived exertion. Are you a ten out of twenty? Are you 20 out of 20, can’t go any more? Things like that, you can monitor other variables along with the RPE scale and following your heart rate. What if the heart rate is just weird on that day? What if your heart rate is very high, but you’re just like, “Man, I’m only a 9 out of 10, or a 10 out of 20 on that Borg scale. My heart rate’s high, but I feel fine.” There’s always that unique “it depends”. Our HRV and all sorts of other things can be tied into and along with heart rate zones to make sure that they’re accurate. But the biggest thing in establishing zones – whatever entity, whether you’re having seven zones or five – what they’re paying attention to is called “heart rate reserve” or HRR. Heart rate reserve is the difference between your max and your resting heart rate. If you don’t know what your max heart rate is, you can use that 220 minus age as mentioned earlier. That can be flawed and not everybody’s exactly that, but that’s a good decent starting spot. You might be new to training, you don’t have a lot of fitness, or you’re not able to get your heart rate super high yet without hurting yourself. That’s just a good safe point, the 220 minus your age, or that Gellish formula that I mentioned before, but you’ve got to know what that max heart rate is, or have a decent idea of what that could be. A 20-year-old may not be able to hit 200 beats per minute. If you're 20 years old, you may not be able to hit 200 beats. But a 65-year-old might be able to easily hit 155. So we know there’s an “it depends”, or there could be a flaw in that formula as we mentioned before. Once that heart rate reserve is established, whatever that number is, it can then be used to set target heart rates. Once you know your heart rate reserve, your THR or target heart rate is useful for determining your optimal training capacity for a certain activity. For example, target zones have to fall somewhere between your resting and max. Our resting heart rate – you said your wife’s is in the 40’s and 50’s – we’re starting at 40 or 50, not at zero. That’s the lowest heart rate that someone might see is 45. So it’s not just a percentage of 220 minus your age. We have to subtract out that resting heart rate so that what’s left over is that target heart rate zone. Those target zones fall in between that, between the resting and max, and they fall usually into three main categories: an easy aerobic intensity, a moderate intensity activity, and a then a vigorous intensity. Once you find out what that target heart rate range is, you take percentages of that. It might be 60, 70, and 85%, let’s say. To find that target heart rate (THR) I have to throw out one more equation: if you take that heart rate reserve and you multiply it by a percent intensity, you take that number and add the resting heart rate [THR = (HRR x % intensity) + HRest], that’s how you establish target heart rate zones. So moderate intensity, like cardio, is estimated to be anywhere from 40 to 59% of your heart rate reserve. Vigorous activity might be 60 to 89% of your heart rate reserve. There are formulas that entities use as a when-in-doubt blanket algorithm to establish those zones.
Andrew: I do want to encourage people, Jeff, as you’re throwing around a lot of percentages and numbers and equations, that this will probably be a very good episode for our listeners to take the time – later today or another day when you’re in front of a computer – to view the podcast transcript. On the TriDot podcast website where the podcast episodes are listed, if you click on an individual episode, the transcripts of word-for-word what our coaches said do get added to our web page, usually a few days to a week after the episode releases. So wait a week or so, and then circle back to the webpage for this episode. This would be a very, very good transcription to pull up to get a visual. I can see the equations these guys are saying, we all have our notes for this episode in front of us. I can see, Jeff, as you’re talking 40% to 59% and this and that, it’s a great learning opportunity having the numbers in front of you as you’re hearing what Jeff is saying. Maybe you never knew that we have the transcriptions to our podcast. I want to give a shout out to two TriDot Ambassadors, Holly and Jamie, that go in, listen to the episode as soon as it releases, and help us get those transcripts created so that you can see what our coaches are saying. With all the math and science on this episode, this is probably a good one to visualize the information at some point on our website with the transcription. Jeff, please continue.
Jeff: Yeah, that’s a good point, and I’ll add this: TriDot does all this for you at a much deeper level. They’re not just blanket equations, so much more goes into it. TriDot establishes your zones. All you’ve got to do is do your assessment, put in the results and the average heart rate achieved during that assessment, and your zones are done for you. You don’t have to know this or even understand it, you don’t have to memorize those equations. This is just how a lot of entities do it when in doubt, and I will say that when other entities are using these formulas, your zones are only as good as what you tell that app. You have to tell your app what is your max heart rate, your resting heart rate, and then they go and establish these zones for you using some of these equations, so they’re only as good as what you tell the app. TriDot establishes it by a much deeper, intensive, more accurate way, so I’ll throw that out there. But really most use five zones, and why these zones are not universal amongst all platforms is due to how they label or categorize the percentages for target heart rate. For example, Garmin has five zones. They label Zone 1 as warmup, then easy, aerobic, threshold, and max. Some other platforms, like Zwift for example, have six zones: recovery, endurance, tempo, threshold, VO2 max, and anaerobic, which is greater than a 119%. Some of that is power versus heart rate. Then some allocate a Zone 3 into tempo, or the dead zone, stuff like that, so it just depends on the philosophy behind the entity. TriDot uses six zones to differentiate the types of stress, that stress response, that’s going to be elicited in the goal of that workout. Our zones are easy, endurance, tempo, threshold, super-threshold, and maximal. So no matter who you are, your aerobic threshold will fall into your Zone 2, your unique internal physiobiological aerobic threshold is going to fall in that Zone 2 range. Your anaerobic threshold is going to fall into that Zone 4. Zone 5 is above threshold, and the goal there is to elicit more of a physical external stressor, kind of like hill repeats or low-cadence work on the bike. Maybe you’re going to get off the bike and do some squats. The goal there is to elicit an external, physical stressor. Then that Zone 6 is a maximal effort, and it’s a neurohormonal stress response that’s trying to be elicited.
Ryan: Coach Raines always with the great information there, and I don’t have a whole lot to add to that because that was perfect, well said. Like I said, regarding what we have seen at TriDot for our heart rates and what we use at that six-zone model, this is 100% based on the research, and looking at multiple models here at TriDot. There are multiple factors that go into the decision, not just solely based on one variable as Raines mentioned. We’re always studying and looking at ongoing research to better understand what models we do use. There are other companies, as Coach Raines mentioned, that use five-zone models, and some even use a seven-zone model that I have seen at Life Time. There’s not necessarily industry standards, as this seems to be continually evolving, but as we’re looking at the data and continuing to evaluate what heart rate ranges are best for our athletes, this will continue to evolve as more data that we get from our athletes is utilized. With all that said, it is best to match your HR zones from TriDot to Garmin and other apps, and follow your TriDot zones exclusively so as to avoid that confusion while we’re all training.
Andrew: Yeah, good point.
Ryan: There’s a high value of regular assessments to keep your heart rate zones updated so you train appropriately, do the right training right.
Andrew: A company man with a company slogan, and all great points. I’ve certainly gone on Garmin before and updated my zones so that they match and Garmin doesn’t yell at me, thinking I’m in the wrong zone. That’s a great point there from Coach Ryan. A frequent thing that comes up with TriDot training specifically is making sure that we stay in Zone 2 heart rate on our easy runs and rides, and the reason being that there are certain physiological adaptations that occur at each zone. When we train in Zone 2, it's doing something different for our bodies than when we train in Zone 4, Zone 5, Zone 6. So I want to hear from you guys a summation for each zone, those six zones that TriDot uses. What is happening physically in our bodies as we train in that zone, and then because of that, why does TriDot give us X amount of time spent in that zone? Coach Ryan?
Ryan: There is a lot to unpack here, but we’ll try to keep it pretty well summarized.
Andrew: I have faith. I believe in you.
Ryan: Zone 1 – I like to say that’s where I’m at right now in my heart rate, because it’s been a hot minute since I’ve been on a podcast – but that’s our low aerobic, a very relaxed recovery zone, very low stress. Like I mentioned, if I look at my watch I’m kind of sitting in that area right now, thankfully. Zone 2 is what I like to say is our comfortable, conversational pace. You go out for that run or ride, you should be able to have and enjoy a nice conversation with your fellow athlete friends, etc. This is our base aerobic zone that often serves as that nice recovery zone. It does elicit that fat burning, some say a nice cheap energy that we have to have it to burn, and it also helps build that aerobic endurance and big foundation. I often emphasize this with my athletes is like, “Listen, let’s not stand on a pedestal with our aerobic base. Let’s make this giant foundation.” It’s going to set you up for success, especially as we get into that long-course racing. It’s going to be so important metabolically speaking for that aerobic fat metabolism to produce more ATP. It’s a great default zone, and again, as you see we’re spending that time in that Zone 4, then we drop into that recovery, reenergize in that Zone 2. You can continually work that in to optimize your physiological adaptations for cardiovascular efficiency and aerobic capacity. Zone 3, oftentimes called our tempo zone, or sometimes we call it a bit of a gray zone, this is often very specific to our half-Iron distances, and is developed with work. It really developed and works in a sandwich kind of manner: you’ve got your Zone 4 work we’ve been doing, we’ve got our Zone 2, and what’s in between is that Zone 3. It doesn’t really facilitate recovery like Zone 2 does, so it’s not something you should be running in for recovery purposes, but it’s specific to distances you may be covering in your future racing. So it’s important to become familiar with Zone 3, practice in it like you see it prescribed in your race rehearsals or race prep phase, to familiarize your feeling, get that RPE feel to it as well. Zone 4, our all-time favorite really, is our uncomfortable, grit-building zone, and is hugely beneficial in developing our anaerobic capacity. Your body’s now forced to utilize carbohydrates as its main source of fuel. It teaches the body with consistent work to withstand and process that lactic acid. Going deep a little here, coming from the respiratory background, that lactic acid gets oxidized and produces more CO2 and water as the byproduct, therefore your respiration really increases your CO2 production as well. As you see with our programming, Zone 4 intervals do vary in durations, continuing to build that grit and embracing that uncomfortable feeling. It’s so important. It will go from several minutes all the way up to that beloved 20 minutes possibly, if you’ve ever seen those pop up on your training. Whew, I tell you, those are –
Andrew: So Ryan, in Zone 3, you’re working. In Zone 4, you’re really working. Then in Zone 5 and 6, you’re really, really, really working – that’s the anecdotal way of quantifying it – and if you’re in Zone 2, you shouldn’t feel like you’re working all that hard. That’s the Andrew Harley RPE Scale: not really working, working, really working, really really working, and really really really working.
Ryan: Yes, absolutely. And like you said, alluding to that Zone 5, our beloved VO2 max zone – I often say it is genetically limited, but often we don’t hit our genetic potential. I tell people, “Make sure you choose your parents wisely.” There’s your bad joke for the day.
Jeff: I appreciate that.
Ryan: Thank you Coach Raines. But it does help pull your fitness up. Zone 5 is not a zone we work in weekly, but it is strategically placed in your programming so that you can recover from these very intense sessions in that Zone 5. So you work in that Zone 5, you get stronger, you move it up, and so do the zones below it. They come up with it. Then lastly, Zone 6 with its neurological benefit – Jeff Raines touched on that very well – it improves that anaerobic power, particularly over very short durations. And again, as you get stronger and stronger, it pulls the other zones with it. So it’s really nice to do those, but it’s even less often than that Zone 5 work.
Andrew: I know there’s a lot of people that are familiar with the 80/20 rule, which talks about how much time we need to be spending in each heart rate zone and each intensity in our training. The 80/20 principle basically estimates that you should spend 80% of your time training at easier Zone 2 paces, and you should spend 20% of your training in Zone 4 and above at harder paces and intensities. There are some people for whom 80/20 is the right split for them, by their age or biology or who they are. But if you’re a younger male, for example, that might be more like 70:30. Your body might be able to take on the physical stress of spending a little more time working harder than somebody who might be a little bit older. So TriDot knows your biology, it knows your age, who you are, your history in the sport, how much training stress you can handle in each of these zones. So Jeff, I’m curious for you break it down for us, what determines how much time in TriDot training we spend in each zone, and why is it more Zone 2 and Zone 4 through 6 and less Zone 3 for example?
Jeff: That’s a great question, and it’s almost the universal question. So many people have their different thoughts on it, but for the most part, you’re right: the majority of your training should be at lower intensities. You have greater adaptations, greater general health benefits. Even alluding to what Tibball was saying earlier about the Zone 4, 5, and 6 – our beloved VO2 max, that really high-intensity above threshold – people think, “To improve my Zone 4, my threshold, improve my watts, get stronger and faster, I have to do a lot of Zone 5 and Zone 6 to raise that.” That’s actually wrong. It’s a misconception, almost even a myth. What TriDot does, like you said, it monitors so many awesome, deeper variables that most people don’t even know. That’s a whole other podcast, but basically each person has a unique ability and capacity to handle certain stressors. Just because you have your zones established, they’re different per discipline, but they’re also different between heart rate, power, and pace. There’s just a lot going on. So we have to set up the zones, push it across different disciplines, and what’s the coinciding power and pace, then push it against swimming versus biking versus running. Once you do all that, then you have to figure out what Andrew said, “What percentages of those zones of the minutes per week do I spend in certain zones?” That’s just crazy, I hope I didn’t lose you there. There’s a lot going on, and the beauty of TriDot is that it does it all for you. You don’t have to know and understand it, you just know that you do your assessments, everything is updated for you. But then you have Andrew’s question, the 80/20. So when in doubt, yeah, the 80/20 rule is a good rule of thumb. If 80% of your training is at Zone 2, you’re kind of safe. You don’t want to do too much quality. You don’t want 50% of the minutes you spend that entire week training to be all in Zone 5 and Zone 6. Even though you might have completed it or felt good in the moment, you’re hindering other workouts, you’re causing immunities and the hormonal levels to be unique or imbalanced. So there is a method, there is an art and science behind it.
I’ll end with another good rule of thumb, the “95% rule” in establishing FTP. Functional threshold bike power is the highest attainable average watts you can hold for about one hour, or sixty minutes. But it’s hard for a lot of people to pace correctly for an hour and do an hour test. If they’re new to training, they don’t have the fitness to do it for an hour. If they don’t pace perfectly, they won’t have their right threshold value. Or it’s so long that it becomes an endurance event. So what do we do? We do a 20-minute test, then there’s this rule out there that you take 95% of the 20-minute test, and that is what that person could hold for one hour, that is their threshold (FTP = 0.95 x 20-minute power). Kind of like the 80/20 rule, when in doubt, that’s a good thing to follow. Just like 220 minus your age, if you don’t know, that might be a close value. There’s always an “it depends”. Everybody in the world is unique and different, your unique internal physiological threshold is so different and unique, person to person. How is everybody in the world’s unique threshold exactly 95% of that 20-minute test, and that’s what they could hold for an hour?
Andrew: Yeah, they can’t be.
Jeff: Yeah, and just like everybody in the world doesn’t have to have 80% of their week in Zone 2 exactly. It’s a good “when in doubt” rule of thumb, but TriDot knows all of these things, and it is catering specifically to you. TriDot doesn’t merely apply that 95% rule to establish your threshold. Many other things are factored in there, age, genetics, the condition to which you do the test. You go do your 5K, and coaches establish thresholds based off of percentage of that finish time to establish pace zones. But what if you did that 5K at 100° and it was super hot? Your body probably thinks you ran a lot faster internally. So all those come into effect with TriDot, and I just love the way that you can trust and know that TriDot is taking all these things into account.
Andrew: Yeah, and when we market TriDot training as data-driven, there’s just a lot more that goes into it than what any human coach or athlete could design for themselves. These are just some of the things that we’re talking about that go into generating what your zones are, what your training plan is, how long you’re holding each interval in each workout. There’s a lot going on underneath the hood. If you’re curious to see some of the exact numbers that Jeff Raines is throwing out there, talking about 95% of a 20-minute FTP test and some of those things, this is an excellent episode to give us a week and then pull up the web page for this episode and read his transcription of all the science that he gave us there. Really, really fascinating stuff on how our training is designed based off of all these rules. Moving us along though, not every training session we have is prescribed by heart rate. It’s good to know our heart rate zones, and there’s training sessions where all we pay attention to is staying in a certain heart rate zone. But there are also training sessions that are prescribed by pace and power, and all of a sudden you’re not paying attention to your heart rate anymore, you’re paying attention to staying running at an 8-minute mile for example, or pushing X amount of watts on the bike for X amount of time. So when we have a session that isn’t heart-rate based, are there still reasons to pay attention to our heart rate in these sessions, or can it absolutely go by the wayside?
Ryan: Absolutely, Andrew, a hundred percent, and that is a great question. Oftentimes I do very much keep an eye on my heart rate, even in those prescribed pace or power workouts. I think it’s very important. I watch not only mine, but my athletes’ heart rates in those sessions that are prescribed by pace and power. I like to look at trends over time, and I think as coaches it’s a valuable tool, trending an athlete’s heart rates through these harder sessions. Especially with TriDot giving us that training stress load and really going into those hard calculations of quantifying that training stress, it’s important to see heart rate throughout these workouts. So I always recommend wearing your heart strap even when you have these power and pace workouts. Knowing how heart rate is affected not only by intensity in workouts but also with hydration, nutrition, stress, recovery, the environment – and I say thank God for environment normalization at TriDot – that way we can train appropriately, doing the right training right. Maybe we should have that extra bottle of Precision Hydration next to us on that trainer, as you’re watching your heart rate creep up, even decoupling a bit. You’re like, “Oh, wait a minute, what’s going on here, maybe we need some extra nutrition too while we’re at it.”
Andrew: Yeah, let’s talk about heart rate decoupling, because that’s something that’s come up several times on the podcast. For anybody who’s not familiar with it, that’s the point where our heart rate begins to drift away from, or decouple from, where it should be at a certain intensity. So if my heart rate when running 8-minute miles is usually 150 beats per minute, and I’m an hour into a workout where I’m running at that pace and all of a sudden my heart rate is starting to creep up to 155, 160, 165 – my pace has not changed, my intensity has not changed – my heart rate has now decoupled from where it should be at that 8-minute mile. Why is it important for us as athletes to note when this happens in a workout, or on race day, and what usually causes this to happen?
Jeff: I love it, heart rate decoupling, let’s go!
Andrew: Go, hit it!
Jeff: So like you said, when your heart rate drifts away from the power or pace that you have maintained, that steady state in workout, and nothing else has changed. Your power is constant, your body positioning is constant, your cadence is constant, your nutritional intake is constant. As we say in Ironman, “hurry up and wait”, we want to keep our watts about the same, our heart rate the same, from start to finish the same intensity, feeling good. But let’s say you’re doing all of that perfectly, everything’s constant, everything’s good – it’s not like you’re waiting an hour and then, “Oh crud, I didn’t drink!” and then you chug a whole bottle at the last minute of every hour – just that good, safe, constant, consistent intake. Everything is stabilized and consistent and maintained, but like you said Andrew, what if your heart rate starts to climb a little bit? You’ve got a four-hour ride, and the last 30 to 60 minutes you kind of see that heart rate climb up by maybe eight to ten beats. You’re like, “Whoa, what’s going on here? I’m 3½ hours into a four-hour ride and my heart rate’s going up a little bit here, but nothing’s changed. It’s not like I just increased my cadence by twenty and just started blasting the legs and my heart rate climbed. The only thing that has changed is my heart rate’s starting to climb a little bit, what’s up with that?” That’s decoupling. Identifying your heart rate decoupling is a very effective way to gauge current aerobic ability. If you have a four-hour ride, but you can only maintain it perfectly for 3½, there’s something off. It could be aerobic fitness, it could be that aerobic ability, or it could be an external factor like Tibball was talking about. Maybe you’re low on nutrition or something like that, and now you’re dehydrated and now your blood is thickening. Now your heart has to beat harder and faster to get the same amount of fuel to the muscle, that’s decoupling. Having strong aerobic endurance is essential if you want to perform at your best in the longer distances. That’s why developing that aerobic fitness is key, and what we focus on in that race prep phase, that stamina phase I call it, the ”fast before far, strong before long”. Those last few months or the last portion of your season as you ramp up, we’re really developing that stamina. That’s when the workouts get longer, and that’s when you can start paying a little bit more attention to that heart rate decoupling, to know what your aerobic endurance is. But experiencing that decoupling could mean a number of things, something could or should need to be adjusted. Dehydration, we talked about the blood thickening, you need more fuel sent to the working muscles, stuff like that. Or maybe it’s just a cadence strategy needs adjusting, or your intensity needs to be lessened by ten watts, or environmental conditions changed. Maybe at the start of your Ironman 112-mile bike ride it’s 55°, but by mile 90 it’s 95°. If your intensity is the exact same watts all day long and you start to see heart rate decoupling, maybe it’s just because it’s hotter out there and there’s more demand put on the body? There’s so many things to pay attention to, which is why I like to do some of my longer rides indoors. Yes you want to get outdoors to work on technical skills and bike handling and all that, but I like to have maybe every third ride in that stamina phase to be indoors, where I can control the environment. The temperature in my pain cave is the same, my cadence is the same, the watts are the same, there’s not a hill or wind or something, so I can really pay attention to what that aerobic fitness is, and if I see that decoupling. “Okay, the last 30 minutes, my heart rate got high. I only averaged 24 ounces of fluids per hour for that ride, so maybe I want to up it to 28 ounces the next time. Oh, the heart rate decoupling didn’t happen. Well, maybe it’s because I was dehydrated. Maybe I need four extra ounces per hour.” Things like that, those are just examples.
Andrew: Let’s wrap our heart rate conversation today with a question about race day. I do have a question on the sheet here about heart rate variability, and I do want to throw that out there because I know some people probably listening to this episode are hoping that we talk about heart rate variability. But y’all, that is a long, deep conversation, a step deeper than this one. Recently our team was at Endurance Exchange, a conference that USA Triathlon hosts every single year, and many of us sat in on a conversation about heart rate variability. So that will come as a separate podcast episode in the near to mid-future, but I’m going to skip it for today just for time. So let’s wrap up with this one: on race day, we’ve got our watches, our heart rate monitors, whatever it is that we’re using to measure those sweet beats per minute. For me, it’s my Garmin 955. How much should we be paying attention to our heart rate throughout a race versus just going off of pace or how we’re feeling?
Ryan: It is, in my coaching opinion, a very important metric to follow during racing. I often refer to heart rate as what I call the “governor”. You think about the governor on a car, some of these high-speed cars that they import from across the country to bring here. They often put governors on there, meaning they restrict them. That’s why I refer to heart rate as a governor when you're racing. Because the heart rate serves as an internal feedback mechanism if you will, telling you that you might need nutrition, hydration, to slow down, or even perhaps speed up. You have room, when you’re staying in your zones. So you should absolutely monitor when racing. In fact, get in good practice in monitoring it while training as well, especially during those long sessions, those long-course race rehearsals. Be intentional while racing in that zone that your coach has prescribed to you, and complete your race with that beautiful smile on your face, knowing that you did it right.
Jeff: Man, good stuff. I love that, I agree a hundred percent. I tell my athletes that heart rate does trump power and pace, especially in long course. Say you’re at mile 50 of the Ironman bike, you’re not even halfway, and your power’s in good low Zone 3 but your heart rate’s well up into Zone 4. Zone 4, as we talked about, is your threshold zone, you can only hold threshold on the bike for about 60 minutes, right? So if you’ve got potentially three or more hours left of the race, you’re not even halfway on the bike and your heart rate’s in Zone 4, in arguably 30 to 60 minutes max something’s gotta give. You can’t hold that threshold effort more than that 60 minutes. You’ll fatigue, you’ll cramp, DNF, you’ll walk most of the run, whatever that is. So even if you’re holding a great low wattage or a safe wattage, if your heart rate’s telling you something else, like Tibball was saying, you have to listen to it. Definitely go out at power and pace like you trained, but keep an eye on that heart rate, and there is a point where it will trump power and pace.
Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.
Vanessa Ronksley: Welcome to the cooldown everyone! I’m Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm! I am really looking forward to today’s Coach Cooldown Tip, because I have here with me TriDot coach Tony Washington. Tony is a corporate pilot, and has the dreamiest work perk ever. He gets to bring his bike with him and ride all over the world. I’m a little bit jealous, because that sounds incredible. He has lived in seven different states, and currently resides in Illinois. He has three kids, and he is also a grandpa, with the newest grandbaby only a month old. On the triathlon side of things, Tony has been a TriDot athlete for eight years, coaching for six years, and a TriDot coach for three years. Tony was a collegiate swimmer who can still lay down some blistering paces, and has helped tons of athletes improve their swim times. He has coached athletes from a wide range of backgrounds and across all race distances from super-sprints all the way to fulls. Tony is infectiously positive, and helps people train their bodies as well as their minds. Welcome to the show, Tony!
Tony Washington: Hey, it’s great to talk to you again! I haven’t seen you since Ambassador Camp. We do have a ton in common, don’t we? Tiny world!
Vanessa: Yeah, right? I actually distinctly remember the first time that you and I met, Tony. It was on the way up Snow Canyon in St. George, Utah at the Ambassador Camp. I heard someone coming up behind me, and all of a sudden there you were beside me with the biggest smile on your face, which was on the same level as my own smile. So I knew that we were destined to know each other, because are there any people that have grins on their faces while riding up Snow Canyon? Now for all of you listeners out there, just picture two people who love climbing hills on their bikes amongst the red rocks. It was a truly magical moment.
Tony: It was a great day, all the red rocks and the gorgeous blue sky. There were probably 50 or 60 of us or something out riding up Snow Canyon, this iconic climb in St. George. And it was fun trying to keep up with all you Canadians, that was a good time, a great day.
Vanessa: That was a really good time. So what tip do you have for us today, Tony?
Tony: For me, swimming is my thing, and I think one of the key things is head position, and what effect it has on your stroke and your balance. I like to tell people that most people look too far forward when they’re swimming, this coming from swimming in a pool where they’re looking where they’re going to make your turn, that kind of thing. So I like to have people think about what their head is doing while they’re swimming, because if your eyes are up too far forward, your feet tend to sink.
Vanessa: Yes. I actually understand this, because I used to be one of those eyes-up type of people when I was swimming, and I had a couple of coaches say to me, “You know, you might want to drop your chin.” It was so interesting, because I thought I was looking straight down at the bottom of the pool, but in reality I wasn’t looking at the bottom of the pool, I was looking ahead. So do you have any cues for people to help them recognize if their head position is not totally correct, and they think that they actually have their head in the right position?
Tony: That’s funny you talk about your chin and what people are talking about. One of the things I think about is that, most of the time when you turn to breathe, your head really comes too far up, because your eyes are out of the water but your mouth is still in the water. So when I think about turning to breathe, I think about my chin coming out of the water, and looking out at the side of the pool. That helps keep your head, shoulders, and hips balanced when you’re turning to breathe, and hopefully keep your body in balance.
Vanessa: I see, and are there any specific drills that you can recommend to practice their head positioning?
Tony: Definitely. When you turn to breathe, look at the side of the pool and think about how high your eyes are going up. If you can see the ceiling, your head and eyes are too far up, and your feet are sinking. So think about that chin –during Pool School we talk about Popeye mouth, and how you want your mouth and chin to be out of the water, versus just your whole head.
Vanessa: Okay, that makes sense. I know some people talk about having a really nice pocket of air to breathe in when they do turn their head, is there some way that you can describe what that feels like or looks like?
Tony: Definitely. If you ever see in the front of a boat when there’s dolphins out in front of the boat or something, and right off the bow there’s a big wave in front of the boat – that’s kind of the front of your head. But if you look right behind there, there’s a big gap, and if you’re doing it right, your mouth is going to fall in that gap, so you can barely turn your head and breathe out of that gap, and turn your head back straight. One thing I just started using is FORM goggles, and because of the displayed image, I discovered that my head moves a lot more than I thought. So now I’m aiming that image in the bottom of the lane line and trying not to move it out of the way, and literally I’ve done two swims now with these and it’s knocked a second off my hundred, just because I now hold my head even more still than I used to.
Vanessa: Oh wow. Okay, so clearly we need to pay attention where our eyes are looking when our head is submerged under the water, and we need to pay attention to where our eyes are looking when we take a breath, and we also want to make sure that we are not moving our head very much at all. I didn’t realize that moving your head could have that great of an impact on your time, actually. That’s crazy.
Tony: It really does. When you think about it, when your head’s moving around, all you’re doing is creating drag. In Pool School we talk about drag, and how water is 800 times more dense than air. We’re always really hyper-concerned with our aero bikes and tiny little tweaks, but the tiniest little change that you’re making to your body position has a huge effect on your speed through the water.
Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.