Thresholds?

What Thresholds?
Article by Michael Hanslip Photography by Simon Hayes

T, LT, AeT, MaxHR, RestingHR

just the sheer number of terms you
can encounter when discussing
cycling heart rate can overwhelm you. If
that isnt bad enough, then you have to
calculate your own value for each one if
you want to follow even the simplest training program. If youve ever given it away
as too hard, or just plain wondered what
these terms mean, then you are in luck. In
this article I will hold your hand and walk
you through the field of thresholds so that
you too will know.

Heart Rates

Resting HR
Your heart is simply a pump. Your blood
is the stuff being pumped, which carries
oxygen everywhere in your body. Each
heart beat pushes a volume of blood out
into your body, through the lungs, the legs
and the brain along with everywhere else
from scalp to toe.
In the middle of the night when you are
deeply asleep in bed your heart beats very
slowly. When asleep much of your body is
working at a very low level so the requirements for oxygen are low. It is the demand
for oxygen that is the primary driver of
heart rate. You are also flat on a bed. The
pressure differential between your feet and
head when standing forces your heart to
work a bit harder, to pump a bit faster.
Resting heart rate is a measured value,
taken first thing in the morning on waking

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while still prone in bed. This establishes the

lower limit of your hearts range. When I
woke up this morning I did what I do every
morning prior to getting out of bed, I took
my heart rate. It was 44 beats per minute.
Max HR
At the end of a bike race when you are
pushing on your pedals for all you are
worth your heart will beat as fast as it can
(or nearly so). It is trying to supply enough
oxygen to your leg muscles to keep them
turning those cranks at top speed. Maximum heart rate is another measured value.
The value you see at the end of a particularly hard race is likely within a couple of
beats of your true maximum. Any estimate
based on your age is potentially off by such
a great amount as to be worthless for training purposes. Just as an example, I have
worked with two good cyclists aged 40
years old. Cyclist A has a maximum heart
rate of 200 while cyclist B has a maximum
heart rate of 156. Both very different from
the often espoused formula of 220 minus
your age which suggests for these riders a
maximum of 180bpm.
In the last two races I have entered
my maximum on the heart rate monitor
(near, but not at, the end of the race) was
189 both occasions, so I happen to be
reasonably close to agreeing with 220
minusage formula.
Maximum heart rate is an essential detail
to many training programs. I think this is

poor planning because most people do not

know with any accuracy what their maximum is. There are a few protocols to reach
your maximum, but they are extremely
taxing on the body and no one should
try this without talking to their physician
beforehand!
The one that I suggest is to pick a medium gradient hill around five per cent
slope. Ride up the hill in a moderately
large gear, perhaps a 53x16 if you race
regularly and a lower gear if you do not
race regularly. Going from bottom to top
should take at least five minutes but not
more than 15. Ride quickly, about 80%
effort. At the summit, turn around and ride
down. Repeat the climb, this time trying to
go harder, about 90% effort. Repeat a third
and final time. On this last go, start out at
the same effort as the prior run, but each
minute pick up the pace slightly. After 3-6
minutes you will have reached your limitations, at which time you should get out of
the saddle and sprint a maximal effort as if
you were fleeing for your life. After 10-30
seconds of that you will have to back off
your effort, but just before your heart rate
starts to drop you will see your maximum
value maybe!
Like a car with a tachometer, you now
have a range for the performance of your
human engine. Idle speed is your resting
heart rate and redline is your maximum
heart rate. Everything you do on the bike
happens somewhere in between.

Training Zones
Many training programs have a method
that cuts this range into the different training zones. The number and size of zones
varies from program to program. Usually
it is a matter of multiplying maximum
by a proportion to estimate the various
boundaries. I am not even going to discuss
these here because I never use maximum
in my own practice I believe there is a
better way.
LT (Lactate Threshold)
Probably the most critical threshold in
cycling or indeed in most sports, is referred
to as either Lactate Threshold (LT) or
Anaerobic Threshold (AT). Yes, these two
mean the same thing to 95% of coaches.
There is a clinical definition which makes
this threshold a measured limit as well.
When you exercise hard your muscles
may not get enough oxygen to power the
contractions. Muscular work done in the
absence (or insufficiency) of oxygen is called
anaerobic work. A by-product of anaerobic
work is lactic acid, also called lactate. When
blood lactate reaches a level of 4.0 (milliMolar but the units arent important)
you are at your lactate threshold. Working
harder than this sees lactate levels zoom up
quickly. Working less than this level you can
usually sustain this as long as your fitness
permits. This implies that everyone from
couch potato to world champion cyclist
cannot sustain work much over their lactate
threshold for very long.

To physically measure lactate threshold

requires a tiny blood sample and a portable
blood lactate meter. State institutes of sport
have these on hand, but what are the rest
of us to do to determine our LT? Nearly
all cyclists can estimate their LT within one
or two beats by completing a field test,
recording an average heart rate and then
dividing the result by 1.04 (see sidebar). As
an example, I went out for my field test and
saw an average HR of 172 indicating my
LT is 165. Physically measured a few weeks
later my LT was actually 166.
AeT (Anaerobic Threshold)
Another important threshold for cycling
is aerobic threshold (AeT). This one can also
be directly measured, just like LT. Sleeping
in bed or sitting at a desk your blood lactate
level will be less than 1.0. When it hits 1.0
we would say that you have begun to get a
workout. Below this level you are not training. So AeT is critical for recovery. Go for
a ride and keep your heart rate below AeT
and it is a recovery ride. Push yourself above
this level and rather than recovering, you
are now adding to your fatigue levels.
In that same field test used to determine
LT, you can also estimate AeT quite
accurately. Take the average HR from the
effort and multiply by 0.7 to determine AeT.
In my example above that yields an aerobic
threshold of 120. I have never had this one
directly measured but there are two pieces
of evidence that strongly support this being
my actual threshold.

Doing Your Own Field Test

very cyclist I coach gets to do one

hard ride each recovery week.
This is the eld test. If you are
going to give this a try you need to
identify the location before the rst
attempt, trying to ride ve km against
the odometer on your bike does not
work for our purposes. It is more important to have a repeatable distance
than an accurate distance. My choice
is a ve km odometer check section
on a nearby highway although any two
permanent landmarks approximately
ve km apart will do. The rst task
is to properly warm up. You cannot
complete a time trial effort without
at least 30 minutes of warming up
rst. Most people take more time
than even this. Once you feel like you
are sufciently warmed up, you can
proceed to the actual eld test effort.
Unless you bring a starter with you, I
suggest a slow rolling start with both
feet clipped into the pedals instead of
a standing start. The objective is to
maintain a consistent effort that gets
you along your course as fast as you
are capable. Riders who arent used
to time trial efforts go out too hard
(or too easy) and end up with surging
efforts as they pick it up and then are
forced to back off. The fastest way is
the smoothest. One of the benets of
doing this monthly is learning how to
ride a consistent effort. Lucky for us,
even if you are only moderately consistent your average heart rate for the
trip doesnt change very much.
You will need some sort of heart rate
monitor that gives an average value for
only the timed portion. To really see
how you are going, repeat the timed
run a second time. Once you cross
your nish line, make your way back
to the start line and have another run.
This trip back should take between 15
and 20 minutes maximum. Use the
higher average you obtain from the
two runs to determine your AT
and AeT.

Trainers

Michael Hanslip

ichael Hanslip
is a Level Two
coach. He has
won four National
Masters titles (two
each in Individual
Pursuit and Individual
Time Trial) and has
a PHD in Oceanic
Archeaology. He has
a day job as a government scientist in Canberra but also works as a coach with one
of his pupils winning a World Championship title. His other interests include fast
cars and hi-fi systems.
www.michaelhanslip.com
email: coach@michaelhanslip.com

Finding a good grade of hill is important,

preferably on a quiet road where you can
keep a steady effort.

Those of you stuck on an indoor

trainer can still undertake the eld
test. You will need a rear-wheel-driven
odometer and the heart rate monitor
to do this. In this case you will watch
for ve km on the odometer, because
there is no other way to determine distance. Everything else is the same, except that because you are sitting inside
and getting very hot, your actual heart
rate will be low. How low depends on
how hot. Even on a cool evening with
a monstrous fan blowing on my back
my indoor FT still comes out six to
eight beats lower than outside. While
the thresholds you calculate arent
valid for outside riding, they are for
computing your zones to work out on
the same trainer. Which is to say, dont
try to use AeT or LT computed outside
for work on the trainer as you will be
going too hard or vice versa.

www.bicyclingaustralia.com 115

SRM power meters are a great way to nd your power threshold.

First is what I call the singing test.

Anyone who has ridden a bike with mates
will know the feeling of cruising along
chatting one minute and barely being able
to squeeze out words as soon as you hit
a hill without slowing down. The harder
you are working, the harder it is to speak.
If you can ride your bike and sing, you are
below the aerobic threshold. As soon as it
becomes difficult to sing you are exceeding
that level. For me this happens when my
heart rate hits 120.
The other indicator is looking at my
average heart rate for a ride. If that
average is 117 I feel very refreshed by the
ride. If it increases to only 122 I feel about
as tired as I did prior to the ride.

your heart rate can also be depressed.

Your heart rate in this circumstance would
have you working too hard. Watts are
always watts, however.
A lactate tolerance drill might require
you to ride at a heart rate or power just
above the LT. On a good day it doesnt
matter which measure you use. On a bad
day, the power measure is still correct but
the heart rate can be out (up or down) by
as much as 10 percent. The same thing
happens with a recovery ride. The singing
test is always accurate. Staying below AeT
power is also always accurate. Sometimes
riding below AeT heart rate can still be
over the line.

Watts

VO2 is an abbreviation for volume

of oxygen. This is not a threshold and
not directly related to heart rates. It is
measured by having the cyclist ride on a
trainer whilst breathing into a machine
that measures how much oxygen this
cyclist has removed from the air they
breathed. It is measured in millilitres
of oxygen per kilogram of body weight
per minute of time. The maximum level
reached is called VO2max. There is a
very strong genetic determination in
VO2max. Changing body weight is the
best way to change this number. If, like
me, your VO2max is below 75 then it
is incredibly difficult (but not actually

Everything I have written also applies if

you are training with a power meter. The
average power returned from the field test
divided by 1.04 is LT power. That field test
average power multiplied by 0.7 is AeT
power. At resting heart rate power is zero
watts. Wattage at maximum heart rate is
unpredictable and not very useful to know.
The big difference between using heart
rate and power to train is that power
is more reliable. After a late night or a
hard week at work your heart rates can
be elevated. In this case you would think
you are doing the appropriate effort, but
actually going less hard. When ill or tired

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VO2Max

impossible) to one day become a world

class cyclist. Knowing what yours is
might be a good conversation starter at
the coffee shop, but it doesnt help your
training very much at all. World class
cyclists will often be in the 80s or even
90s of V02Max, though not always.
Henk Vogels for example usually sat
around 78.

Summary
I discussed four values in this article.
Resting heart rate establishes the lower
limit of your heart and is a good tracking
device for both fitness (long-term changes)
and recovery (daily changes) with lower
generally being better for both fitness and
recovery. Aerobic threshold is the barrier
that separates easy, recovery type exercise
from harder, training type exercises.
Keeping aware of this one is probably
the single best reason for owning a heart
rate monitor. Anaerobic threshold is the
barrier between mostly aerobic exercise
the kind that you can keep up for a long
time and mostly anaerobic exercise. Too
much time spent over this threshold will
run you down in short order. Maximum
heart rate is the upper limit for your heart.
Remember if you see a number bigger
than what you thought was your max, as
long as you dont have a heart problem
then it means your old estimate was
too low.

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