Very High HR, Low RPE, No Drift

Creator

Topic
August 13, 2021 at 8:55 am #56363

Oliver
Participant

Hello, i’m slightly confused by the results from one of my athletes. He has completed the heart rate drift test and assures me he is nasal breathing at a conversational pace the whole time, his HR starts at 170bpm after the 15minute warm and ends at 170bpm for a PA:HR of 0. His pace is 7:00km/h.

I’m unsure what to advise next as following the correct procedure would mean asking him to redo the test at a higher HR but its seems a little crazy to think his Zone 2 is 170+. This person is not a professional athlete but a recreational runner. His resting HR is very normal at 52, is there some physiological phenomenon where some people have a higher rate?

Would love some advise on this as i’m stumped!

Thanks in advance!
Oli
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Posted In: General Training Discussion

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LindsayTroy on August 13, 2021 at 1:47 pm #56368

I’ll start with, I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to think his AeT is > 170. For example, mine is 172 (with a RHR of ~60) and I’m no professional athlete.

But, to address your question:
How old is he? How did you arrive at 170 as a target? What are you using to measure his heart rate? Which outdoor test did you do? Was his pace on the flats or on a hill?

Participant

Oliver on August 13, 2021 at 2:02 pm #56369

Oh really, would this just indicate he has a very strong aerobic base? He is 27 and landed on 170 from aiming to run at a comfortable pace where he was able to nasal breath and have a comfortable conversation. The test he completed was the 1 hour HRD test. This was all done on a nearly flat route and done on chest HR monitor.

Participant

LindsayTroy on August 13, 2021 at 3:37 pm #56370

So some of its genetic, and some of it is je ne sais quoi I made a thread earlier this week asking what you could take away from inter-personal HR variability and the only response I got was you can make generalizations at the population level but not at the individual level.

If his AnT is <= 187 then he doesn’t have ADS and has a good aerobic base. But maybe he’s just one of those people with real high max HR and an equally high AnT meaning he still has room to improve his AeT. Without those numbers I think it’s hard to tell if he has a strong aerobic base.

One thing I find curious is that his pa:hr is 0%. So he kept a perfectly correlated pace to HR for an hour? could you post his training peaks analysis plot?

Participant

Oliver on August 14, 2021 at 4:52 pm #56387

He hasn’t performed a AnT test yet, that could add some clarity to the overall picture so i will get him to do that. In your experience do you see a difference if you perform a 1hour AnT test vs a 30minute?

I’ve attached the GPX, would love to hear what you make of it.

Thanks!!

Participant

Oliver on August 16, 2021 at 4:51 pm #56412

Hopefully this works…

Participant

Reed on August 19, 2021 at 9:30 am #56470

Seconding Lindsay’s comments – lots of variation from person to person, which is why this type of test is so important!

Some additional reading in the forums:

My understanding is that heart rate is highly variable from person to person. Formulas and averages work across populations, but the range is quite large.

I haven’t studied this in depth. A quick search brought me to a 2001 paper that suggested a linear equation for max heart rate of 208 – (age * 0.7).[1] Strong correlation of 0.9, but standard deviation of up to 11 beats per minute. I.e., 95% of 30-year-olds likely have a max heart rate between 165bpm and 209bpm. Not very helpful for an individualized training plan.

[1]http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/accj/37/1/153.full.pdf

Interpreting blood lactate test. Also, zone definitions.

Participant

Oliver on September 4, 2021 at 9:01 am #56766

Hi Reed, thanks for this response, the link to your previous thread was extremely, iI gained a ton of information from it. Thanks for sharing your story as you did.

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