Questions For Those Who Monitor Their Heart Rate while Exercising
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Interesting conversation.
Just an observation that it doesn't have to be a one or the other choice...
I'm just switching to my winter cycle training where power comes into the equation.
In reality I'm using power, HR and RPE.
A 20min maximal effort test was aimed at a certain power goal (yay - hit a PR) but I'm using HR and RPE as part of my pacing. I know I can maintain high 150's HR (but in danger of falling apart in the 160's) and I also know that my RPE is a bit skewed as I get too hot indoors.
One of my slightly odd fitness indicators is when my power and HR zones get out of sync. Last year power lagged after a spell of illness and right now my power is really good for my HR as I'm healthy and coming off three very intense cycling months.
A 30min "Zone 2" session followed but really I was aiming at a power goal (150w) and I was right at the top of Z2 early on but hitting the boundary from half way through (overheating a bit). 142bpm is Z2 and 143bpm is Z3 - the training effect isn't different between the two numbers just because they straddle a boundary.
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NorthCascades wrote: »Sorry, forgot something. In the spirit of exchanging ideas.
Your heart rate lags behind what you're doing. Everybody who runs knows it takes about a minute after you start a run for your HR to get up to speed, and people like to watch how much their HR came down 2 minutes after they finished. Your HR is a window into the past. It's like a 30 to 45 second average of what you just did.
And generally that's not a problem. But a lot of people are doing short intervals, and people should know HR isn't good for this because of that lag. Pace is just fine, that's why people do run/walk intervals.
Not research based, but my experience would suggest that the practical effect of the lag was reduced as I got fitter. Yes, the measurement would be expect to inherently lag a little behind by the very nature of measurement, in addition to physiology. I'm not so sure about the 30-45 second average idea, in interval contexts.
Using a landscape metaphor for HR response: A spin class used to have smaller and more gradual "valleys" for the intervals between songs where I grab a drink/towel, etc., as we briefly ease off the intentional intensity increase that happens during a song. Now (like 15+ years on from doing that and rowing regularly), the "peaks" tend to be more pointy (or mesa-like for longer intensity pieces) with a comparatively quick, steep drop to a pointed "valley". (If I had old charts I could share, I'd show a comparison; I don't.)
It would seem that the implication would be that the "time in zone" data varies depending on fitness level. Speculating wildly with no actual applied knowledge whatsoever about how sophisticated fitness tracker algorithms are, I've wondered whether this kind of thing is another factor that could cause HRM-based calorie estimates to be higher for less-fit people than more-fit people (of the same size and doing the same exercise/pace with what would be expected to be about the same calorie burn). I assume the tracker code would either make an assumption about average fitness level/heart rate response, or - if really sophisticated, which I doubt, in devices that have the estimates - use its VO2max estimate in some way to adjust.
(I'm commenting out of pure interest in the topic, just for conversation's sake. I use my HR data mainly in the moment during workouts, to make sure I don't slack off intensity. Even when training, the actual structure of my plan was more about intensity/duration combinations - holding a target pace that was initially determined based on HR response curves, for a designated length of time or number of meters.)
P.S. Unrelated admission, because it's been bugging me: In a PP on this thread, I typed RHR when I meant HRR. Sigh.
I think that's right on too for HRR to not lag as bad.
Conversely, the more fit it seems, the slightly more lag time going up. Unfit it shoots up pretty quick.
And as you mention, drops slower.
That will inflate those HR-based calorie burns - more so the more unfit you are.
I'm sure that's why some people starting out and just walking initially, get HR up there high enough the trackers are using HR-based calorie burn.
But I've seen several report they burn less (or so it appears to them) after a few months doing the same speed - where the HR probably isn't going up high enough to come out of step-based calorie burn - which would have had more potential for accuracy even from the start.
That's an interesting idea of gauging fitness and therefore tweaking formula for calorie burn.
But you are correct - they do over-estimate for unfit, and potentially underestimate for fit of the same physical stats (popular HRM calorie formula's use BMI in calc - you could have bad looking BMI and be very fit, or opposite).
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OldAssDude wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Sorry, forgot something. In the spirit of exchanging ideas.
Your heart rate lags behind what you're doing. Everybody who runs knows it takes about a minute after you start a run for your HR to get up to speed, and people like to watch how much their HR came down 2 minutes after they finished. Your HR is a window into the past. It's like a 30 to 45 second average of what you just did.
And generally that's not a problem. But a lot of people are doing short intervals, and people should know HR isn't good for this because of that lag. Pace is just fine, that's why people do run/walk intervals.
i get pretty good results with intervals. This is 60 second run intervals and 3 minute power walk intervals over a 3 mile distance.
Nobody said you don't get good results doing intervals, people do them because they produce results. But heart rate lags behind what your actually doing. It measures what you just did not what you're doing now.
Agreed as you can see below...
But still able to monitor my progress throughout the workout, and gauge how i am doing the whole time (with the exception of the last minute of the last interval).
What's your target for your intervals? Or maybe a better question is how do you do them?
I'm not being argumentative, I'm in this to exchange ideas. And I come from a cycling background where you can coast, unlike running, so there's a little bit of "divided by a common language" thing going on.
I have 3 interval workouts I do: 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 20 minutes. I have a different power target, I'm trying to average a certain number of watts for each one. (Like runners have a 5k page and a marathon pace.). If I miss my target by 10% twice, I call it a day and ride home, I'm not getting the adaptation I'm going for, I'm just digging myself into a recovery hole.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Sorry, forgot something. In the spirit of exchanging ideas.
Your heart rate lags behind what you're doing. Everybody who runs knows it takes about a minute after you start a run for your HR to get up to speed, and people like to watch how much their HR came down 2 minutes after they finished. Your HR is a window into the past. It's like a 30 to 45 second average of what you just did.
And generally that's not a problem. But a lot of people are doing short intervals, and people should know HR isn't good for this because of that lag. Pace is just fine, that's why people do run/walk intervals.
i get pretty good results with intervals. This is 60 second run intervals and 3 minute power walk intervals over a 3 mile distance.
Nobody said you don't get good results doing intervals, people do them because they produce results. But heart rate lags behind what your actually doing. It measures what you just did not what you're doing now.
Agreed as you can see below...
But still able to monitor my progress throughout the workout, and gauge how i am doing the whole time (with the exception of the last minute of the last interval).
What's your target for your intervals? Or maybe a better question is how do you do them?
I'm not being argumentative, I'm in this to exchange ideas. And I come from a cycling background where you can coast, unlike running, so there's a little bit of "divided by a common language" thing going on.
I have 3 interval workouts I do: 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 20 minutes. I have a different power target, I'm trying to average a certain number of watts for each one. (Like runners have a 5k page and a marathon pace.). If I miss my target by 10% twice, I call it a day and ride home, I'm not getting the adaptation I'm going for, I'm just digging myself into a recovery hole.
When i do the 60 second intervals my target is just to get into zone 5 for each run interval, and for the 3 minute power walk (active recovery) interval i try to still stay in the cardio zone. My thinking is that if i stay in the cardio zone the whole workout, and at the same time get above lactate threshold for the run intervals, i get credit for steady state and HIIT at the same time.
As you can see, i start to fizzle out a little at the end, but it's a good workout.
Sometimes i do 30 second all out run (trying to hit MHR) intervals and 2 minute power walk intervals over a 3.85 mile distance. I wind up doing 15 or 16 intervals on that one.
Also, i recently switched the zones in my Garmin fenix 5x to use %HRR instead of %MHR. I am still using the same percent for the zones (50-60, 60-70, 70-80, 80-90, 90-100), so the BPM ranges for each zone are quite a bit higher and more in line with my perceived exertion of each zone.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »Although perceived effort is a fairly estimate of intensity, I prefer to monitor my heart rate during exercise in conjunction with how i feel. Sometimes i feel like i'm working harder that i actually am, and sometimes i feel like i'm not working as hard as i actually am. Using heart rate, there is no doubt, and using heart rate in conjunction with perceived exertion can tell you if you are recovering enough (or not enough).
I feel that heart rate training is a good way to improve cardio fitness level because the basic rule of thumb to get a minimum training effect is to keep your heart rate in the cardio zone for a minimum of 20 minutes non stop and a minimum of 3 times a week. You can't do that unless you know what your heart rate is during the workout.
The most important thing (and the first thing you should know) in heart rate training is your "true max heart rate". Since all your heart rate zones are based on MHR, they will all be off if your MHR is not correct. There are several ways to get your true max heart rate, from different formulas, to different tests you can do with a heart rate monitor, to having it done in a lab.
There are also different ways to setup heart rate zones: peercent of MHR, percent of HRR, percent of LT, etc...
Also, there are different zone systems: 3 zone, 5 zone, custom with sub zones, etc...
Which brings me to my questions.
what is your age and your MHR?
how did you get your MHR?
how do you have your zones setup (MHR, HRR, LT)?
what zone system do you use (3 zone, 5 zone, custom)?
my answers are as follows...
I'm 61 and currently have mine set at 174.
I used the EDWARDS formula. In addition i have got my HR up to 169 using a heart rate monitor enough times to be confident that the EDWARDS formula is probably a more accurate number for me. An ultra runner once told me to use the highest heart rate recorded and add 5 to that number. So 169 + 5 = 174.
I currently have my zones set to percent of MHR.
I currently use a standard 5 zone system.
I am interested to know how other people that do heart rate training set their numbers.
thanks in advance,
Oh, yes there is. There is plenty of doubt. Run easy on a very hot day and do the same run on a cold day. Was the run harder on the hot day? Go a few nights with little sleep and do the same run. Do it again just before you get sick. Do it when you are just getting better.
Everyone one of these will be different. You'll be doing the exact same run but get wildly different heart rates.
I know I can't talk you out of this (you know I've tried
). Just be aware the heart rate will lie to you.
What i meant by no doubt is there is no doubt what your heart rate is.
On a hot day my heart rate is going to be higher than on a cold day. I know that because i can see it as i am running. The same with not enough sleep getting sick.
but...
I have done very similar runs at similar heart rates and similar conditions and perceived them differently. So you can't just go by that either, and your heart rate is still going to be whatever it is. I would not have even noticed that if i was not monitoring my heart rate and wondering why i perceived things differently at the same heart rate under the same conditions.
My point is, if i want to improve my fitness level, and i know i have to be in at least zone 3 for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times a week to get a minimum training effect, i'm going to do at least that regardless of how i perceive it.
The CDC states...
The Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is a way of measuring physical activity intensity level. Perceived exertion is how hard you feel like your body is working. It is based on the physical sensations a person experiences during physical activity, including increased heart rate, increased respiration or breathing rate, increased sweating, and muscle fatigue. Although this is a subjective measure, a person's exertion rating may provide a fairly good estimate of the actual heart rate during physical activity* (Borg, 1998).
You are already at an elite level of fitness so you probably don't need to worry about heart rate so much, and your easiest workout would probably be my hardest workout.
I will also add that many ultra runners on the suunto forum have all these crazy sub zones setup on their devices target not only zones, but specific bpm numbers to squeeze every drop of energy out of their hearts to be able to run for that long without fizzling out.
I'm not saying anyone has to monitor their heart rate, but it's a good way to know if your getting a training effect or not. And my intent for this thread was simple to find out how other people that do use heart rate training do it.
Serious question, why not use pace? Or grade normalized pace if you're running in hilly terrain?
Well for 1, GPS pace usually sucks on most devices (jumps all over the place). I suppose i could use lap pace or average pace, but it's just so much easier to just glance at my HR every once in a while and adjust if needed. My garmin has the HR zones laid out so i can see what zone i'm in with just a quick glance.
Knowing that keeping HR in a certain zone for a certain time will give me a training effect, why not just use HR instead of trying to guess by feel or pace?
Running power seems to be interesting, but i think it still has a long way to go before they even know what the standards are going to be.
Because your pace is an objective measure of your workload, whereas your heart rate is a subjective measure of a lot of different things combined. If you know your current pace and your capabilities as a runner, Bob's your uncle, you know objectively how intense this is for you. In short it answers the question you're asking of your HRM.
Foot pods can give you a very good instant pace when GPS struggles.
An analogy: when you lift do you use the numbers printed on the weights to know how much to lift, or do you use your HR?
Edit to add: you don't get a training benefit simply from having your heart at X bpm. If that's all it took, people who do cocaine would be the fittest people around, people who watch horror movies might be next. You improve your fitness by doing hard work that stresses your heart, lungs, etc. There's nothing wrong with watching your heart rate but there's a danger of putting too much stock in it. Or maybe not if it motivates you.
The bolded paragraph got me thinking about what we mean by exercise intensity. (I'm not an exercise physiologist, don't know this stuff, but find it interesting.)
The common (nonscholarly) definitions often seem to mix together power (like pace) and physiological response to it (defining it in terms of RPE benchmarks like the talk test), including both in the definition at the same time.
This seems puzzling to me. If the point of training is to change the response, why would intensity be defined in terms of both? That's the question the bolded part of your post brought to mind. (I understand you, personally, to be talking about the relationship at one point in time, and I'm not. I'm taking it longer term.)
As I progress in fitness, any given pace should become subjectively easier (lower RPE). Does that "difficult" subjective result at T1 when less fit, and at "easier" subjective result at T2, but at constant pace both times, mean the exercise is the same intensity at both times, or different? I would think that oxygen consumption would be close to equal, but that what's changed is how easy it is to consume it productively, in effect.
So, pace is important, but so is some other measure that helps get at the progress, if one wants to be as objective as feasible. Heart rate works (objective measurement with a reliable device, but with minor** confounding factors for interpretation), RPE works (it's subjective, but has fairly clear benchmarks, and different confounding factors).
So, I think Sijomial has a point (snipping out just the relevant bits):...
Just an observation that it doesn't have to be a one or the other choice...
I'm just switching to my winter cycle training where power comes into the equation.
In reality I'm using power, HR and RPE.
...
(other good stuff snipped!)
I'd put it even more strongly: It seems to me like it has to be more than one, to train sensibly.
One of the reasons I like monitoring HR when exercising (though RPE would also work for this) is that it keeps me pushing over (longish) time given changes in fitness. Maybe it's just my character faults, but using pace alone would lull me into under-challenging myself, I think. (NorthCascades, you do note the motivational effect.
).
(Yes, I'm overthinking. It's what I do. I don't think one can spend 30-some years as a systems analyst and not overthink things.)
** I've been using a HRM for the same activities for a long time. I see a HR response difference with heat, hydration, etc., - all the normal stuff. It isn't a huge difference, though, IME. If it were suddenly anything much more than the expecte minor variation, unless I knew something was actually wrong with me already, I'd be worried.2 -
@AnnPT77
That's an excellent post.
In the cycling world, we have some ways to deal with exactly what you're talking about. The work you performed, and your body's reaction to it. Unfortunately they're basically an alphabet soup of acronyms.
My functional power threshold (FTP) is kind of like your LTHR. Key word is threshold, we don't need to go too deep.
Riding a bike outdoors is never a steady state thing. How hard of a steady state would "be equal to" any given ride? That's normalized power (NP). I might average 160 watts, but if there was a lot of starting and stopping, it might "have the same amount of strain" as 180 w for the same amount of time.
Here's the magic: the intensity factor (IF) of a ride is NP / FTP.
If I go out and do a hard ride with an intensity factor of .9, and Sagan or Frome does a ride with IF .9, it was just as hard for them as it was for me. Obviously it takes a very different ride to rack up that much intensity for those guys as for me. (I think lifters have the same concept in 1RM.)
Finally, there's a training stress score (TSS) which is (minutes / 60) * IF * 100. Longer rides accumulate more TSS. A ride of 300 TSS will leave everybody fatigued for a couple days.
More magic: we use long and short term averages of our TSS to estimate our fitness and current level of cumulative fatigue. There's this really cool graph that we use to time when we'll be in our best form to race.2 -
I'd put it even more strongly: It seems to me like it has to be more than one, to train sensibly.
I wanted to talk about this too, but my last post was plenty long enough already.
People (again, in the cycling community) who train much more seriously than I do, are loving indoor trainers for two reasons: control over everything like no traffic for example, and erg mode. Somebody was just telling me how it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and I need to do it. "It adjusts the resistance according to how fast you pedal. You want to do 300 watts, it forces you to do 300 watts. You can't not execute the workout perfectly unless you fall off the bike."
But in racing, and in spirited rides, it's a combination of what you feel capable of and how important the moment is (can you bridge a gap and catch up to a faster group?), also informed by power, which takes a back seat here. In short, you pretty much nailed it for when it's important.0 -
@NorthCascades - all those mainly bike related scores/measurements is what I wish was available in the running side of things.
I love riding just to ride, and am always pushing to go just as hard as I think I can for the route distance/time I have available and need to do it in. Usually the problem is overestimating, and I need to go faster to finish the distance in available time.
So all the training stuff I know, and the extra the bike/watt's makes possible - just is wasted on my desires. (though I may be inspired some day to ride out to flattish longer road and attempt some intervals)
But running - that's where I'd like to have some of those extra things, with caveat that I'm running outside with elevation changes.
I'm glad the comments were made about running watt's not being a reliable scoring method yet. Though in comparison to yourself and getting some figures as a base and a plan together, could be useful I'll bet.
@AnnPT77 - does the single/group rowing include certain training levels to improve say VO2max or LT/AT levels for performance improvement? Or specific long easy for endurance improvement? What is considered endurance actually for rowing?
I've always wondered about the many I've done group rides with (which I don't do often due to scheduling) which I follow on Strava too.
There is nothing in their schedule for specific training for improvements - just riding hard each and every time - rarely will I see a comment about a slow ride because prior day was hard. Even their winter trainer rides are just go all out.
They are fast - I've always wondered how much faster if they had some specific training - since as hard as you can session after session is usually a slower improvement method.
Whereas I've seen the notices for running groups (which I've never joined) that were going to have a specific training focus for a run, which I thought would be interesting.
So only from my observations - it seems the group that has tools that could allow a better focused training method doesn't use them, the group that doesn't have those tools does focused training - wondered where rowing fell in that range as a single/group activity.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Sorry, forgot something. In the spirit of exchanging ideas.
Your heart rate lags behind what you're doing. Everybody who runs knows it takes about a minute after you start a run for your HR to get up to speed, and people like to watch how much their HR came down 2 minutes after they finished. Your HR is a window into the past. It's like a 30 to 45 second average of what you just did.
And generally that's not a problem. But a lot of people are doing short intervals, and people should know HR isn't good for this because of that lag. Pace is just fine, that's why people do run/walk intervals.
Not research based, but my experience would suggest that the practical effect of the lag was reduced as I got fitter. Yes, the measurement would be expect to inherently lag a little behind by the very nature of measurement, in addition to physiology. I'm not so sure about the 30-45 second average idea, in interval contexts.
Using a landscape metaphor for HR response: A spin class used to have smaller and more gradual "valleys" for the intervals between songs where I grab a drink/towel, etc., as we briefly ease off the intentional intensity increase that happens during a song. Now (like 15+ years on from doing that and rowing regularly), the "peaks" tend to be more pointy (or mesa-like for longer intensity pieces) with a comparatively quick, steep drop to a pointed "valley". (If I had old charts I could share, I'd show a comparison; I don't.)
It would seem that the implication would be that the "time in zone" data varies depending on fitness level. Speculating wildly with no actual applied knowledge whatsoever about how sophisticated fitness tracker algorithms are, I've wondered whether this kind of thing is another factor that could cause HRM-based calorie estimates to be higher for less-fit people than more-fit people (of the same size and doing the same exercise/pace with what would be expected to be about the same calorie burn). I assume the tracker code would either make an assumption about average fitness level/heart rate response, or - if really sophisticated, which I doubt, in devices that have the estimates - use its VO2max estimate in some way to adjust.
(I'm commenting out of pure interest in the topic, just for conversation's sake. I use my HR data mainly in the moment during workouts, to make sure I don't slack off intensity. Even when training, the actual structure of my plan was more about intensity/duration combinations - holding a target pace that was initially determined based on HR response curves, for a designated length of time or number of meters.)
P.S. Unrelated admission, because it's been bugging me: In a PP on this thread, I typed RHR when I meant HRR. Sigh.
I think that's right on too for HRR to not lag as bad.
Conversely, the more fit it seems, the slightly more lag time going up. Unfit it shoots up pretty quick.
And as you mention, drops slower.
That will inflate those HR-based calorie burns - more so the more unfit you are.
I'm sure that's why some people starting out and just walking initially, get HR up there high enough the trackers are using HR-based calorie burn.
But I've seen several report they burn less (or so it appears to them) after a few months doing the same speed - where the HR probably isn't going up high enough to come out of step-based calorie burn - which would have had more potential for accuracy even from the start.
That's an interesting idea of gauging fitness and therefore tweaking formula for calorie burn.
But you are correct - they do over-estimate for unfit, and potentially underestimate for fit of the same physical stats (popular HRM calorie formula's use BMI in calc - you could have bad looking BMI and be very fit, or opposite).
I've had that (bolded) disagreement here several times with people who are 100% certain that a fit person doing a particular workout (running a mile, say) at a particular pace is burning significantly fewer calories than an unfit person (sized matched, etc.) doing the same workout.
I can think of at least two things that probably contribute to this:
1. RPE change, loosely: As a person gets fitter, doing any given workout obviously just feels easier. So, they think it must be burning fewer calories. (Because all that sweating and pain and stuff is clearly burning more calories, right? No. Because effective calorie-burning exercise has to make you miserable, or it isn't doing you any good, right? No.)
2. HRM, because as the heart rate response improves, the device thinks they burned fewer calories (disproportionate to any change in body size) doing the same activity. Technology devices are magically insightful and correct, right? No. HRM are the most accurate way to estimate exercise calories because they know all about you and how hard you're working, right? No. (The trackers that know what activity one is doing could theoretically use that information to improve the calorie estimate; I don't know how many, if any, do.)
I haven't had much luck convincing anyone that a fit person and an unfit person, otherwise matched, burn roughly the same number of calories doing the same measured/metered workout. I stubbornly persist in believing it myself, though. 2 -
@NorthCascades - all those mainly bike related scores/measurements is what I wish was available in the running side of things.
I know stuff exists like threshold pace vs actual pace, and that there's a way to level the data meaning how fast your miles would have been on flat ground considering the grade. I have no idea how well any of it works in practice because I just don't run enough.0 -
I haven't had much luck convincing anyone that a fit person and an unfit person, otherwise matched, burn roughly the same number of calories doing the same measured/metered workout. I stubbornly persist in believing it myself, though.
In the bike world, everybody takes it for granted that the meter is right.
I would think rowing and walking should be easy cases to make. Running has more opportunity to water energy if you don't do it well but that's not about fitness.0 -
@NorthCascades, that's very interesting. I've wondered what all those funny abbreviations you cyclists use are about.
Rowing - the real one - is not well-measured. I think, at current level of understanding and technology, it can't be. Machine rowing can be, but rowers say "ergs don't float": The fastest on the machine is not necessarily the fastest on the water.
Of course, there is the will/spirit piece of it, as you talk about in cycle racing; but there is also a very large contribution of technique: Bladework, the physics of body movement (contributing to or interfering with movement of boat in the proper direction on the water), and (above the single at least) coordination with others is a huge factor. Properly adjusted equipment can also be a big factor. (So much tweaking of angles of oars to boat to rower to water, in 3 dimensions, affected by athlete size, proportions, flexibility! Bigger collegiate teams can have a staff member - rigger or boatman - who specializes in these equipment issues and other boat/oar maintenance).
There's a bit of these technique issues even on a machine (mainly from how much of the effort translates into useful work at the flywheel, because it's possible to expend quite a lot of energy that doesn't translate into measured power).
As a quick example: At one regional rowing machine race I participated in, officials recruited volunteers among women who'd already finished rowing, to stand on the horizontal extension from the front legs of the C2 rowing machines, during some of the men's races. Unless the machine was held down in some fashion, some of these strong guys would make the machine move across the floor, in addition to whatever energy went into the flywheel and got measured in watts. I'm thinking that "move machine across floor" thing is work in the physics sense, but it's not useful work in the rowing sense. (It usually implies technique that would dramatically slow down a boat, if not quickly turn rowing into swimming. ). Some of these people are fast on the machine, though.
For machine rowing, one could calculate something like your NP, I think, but watts at the machine doesn't really equate to work by the body, for reasons like the above (and other forms of material inefficiency, not all of which is beginner-level stuff). On-water is ridiculously worse, especially in multi-rower boats. (Last I read up, a few years back, the physics of the rower/boat system is still not completely well-understood: It's a complex hydrodynamic system, and a complex set of body movements. Bottom line, it's not uncommon for team rowers who put up the best erg scores not to be fastest on water, and vice-versa.
On water, we pretty much have heart rate data (not that closely watched during practice), stroke rating (strokes per minute) and boat pace/speed as the useful measurements. For multi-seat boats, coaches compare individual rowers (and their ability to synch with a particular boat of others) via something called "seat racing". You take two boats, set them a race piece, then swap one rower from each boat into the other boat, and do it again. (As an aside, there are possibly apocryphal, but I suspect actual true, stories of coaches who've lost patience with a particular rowers effort or coachability seat-racing them against a Twinkie. Yes, the snack food.)
How a good bit of this rowing effectiveness stuff works is not how non-rowers think it works. 0 -
I haven't had much luck convincing anyone that a fit person and an unfit person, otherwise matched, burn roughly the same number of calories doing the same measured/metered workout. I stubbornly persist in believing it myself, though.
So true - then you start getting into the whole path regarding type of fuel used in those cases - higher carb or fat ratio's depending on fitness.
And most people's experience isn't with the weight remaining the same - their experience is while pounds are dropping - so there is a difference, even more so with reported HRM-burned calories then.1 -
OldAssDude wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »OldAssDude wrote: »Although perceived effort is a fairly estimate of intensity, I prefer to monitor my heart rate during exercise in conjunction with how i feel. Sometimes i feel like i'm working harder that i actually am, and sometimes i feel like i'm not working as hard as i actually am. Using heart rate, there is no doubt, and using heart rate in conjunction with perceived exertion can tell you if you are recovering enough (or not enough).
I feel that heart rate training is a good way to improve cardio fitness level because the basic rule of thumb to get a minimum training effect is to keep your heart rate in the cardio zone for a minimum of 20 minutes non stop and a minimum of 3 times a week. You can't do that unless you know what your heart rate is during the workout.
The most important thing (and the first thing you should know) in heart rate training is your "true max heart rate". Since all your heart rate zones are based on MHR, they will all be off if your MHR is not correct. There are several ways to get your true max heart rate, from different formulas, to different tests you can do with a heart rate monitor, to having it done in a lab.
There are also different ways to setup heart rate zones: peercent of MHR, percent of HRR, percent of LT, etc...
Also, there are different zone systems: 3 zone, 5 zone, custom with sub zones, etc...
Which brings me to my questions.
what is your age and your MHR?
how did you get your MHR?
how do you have your zones setup (MHR, HRR, LT)?
what zone system do you use (3 zone, 5 zone, custom)?
my answers are as follows...
I'm 61 and currently have mine set at 174.
I used the EDWARDS formula. In addition i have got my HR up to 169 using a heart rate monitor enough times to be confident that the EDWARDS formula is probably a more accurate number for me. An ultra runner once told me to use the highest heart rate recorded and add 5 to that number. So 169 + 5 = 174.
I currently have my zones set to percent of MHR.
I currently use a standard 5 zone system.
I am interested to know how other people that do heart rate training set their numbers.
thanks in advance,
Oh, yes there is. There is plenty of doubt. Run easy on a very hot day and do the same run on a cold day. Was the run harder on the hot day? Go a few nights with little sleep and do the same run. Do it again just before you get sick. Do it when you are just getting better.
Everyone one of these will be different. You'll be doing the exact same run but get wildly different heart rates.
I know I can't talk you out of this (you know I've tried ). Just be aware the heart rate will lie to you.
What i meant by no doubt is there is no doubt what your heart rate is.
On a hot day my heart rate is going to be higher than on a cold day. I know that because i can see it as i am running. The same with not enough sleep getting sick.
but...
I have done very similar runs at similar heart rates and similar conditions and perceived them differently. So you can't just go by that either, and your heart rate is still going to be whatever it is. I would not have even noticed that if i was not monitoring my heart rate and wondering why i perceived things differently at the same heart rate under the same conditions.
My point is, if i want to improve my fitness level, and i know i have to be in at least zone 3 for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times a week to get a minimum training effect, i'm going to do at least that regardless of how i perceive it.
The CDC states...
The Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is a way of measuring physical activity intensity level. Perceived exertion is how hard you feel like your body is working. It is based on the physical sensations a person experiences during physical activity, including increased heart rate, increased respiration or breathing rate, increased sweating, and muscle fatigue. Although this is a subjective measure, a person's exertion rating may provide a fairly good estimate of the actual heart rate during physical activity* (Borg, 1998).
You are already at an elite level of fitness so you probably don't need to worry about heart rate so much, and your easiest workout would probably be my hardest workout.
I will also add that many ultra runners on the suunto forum have all these crazy sub zones setup on their devices target not only zones, but specific bpm numbers to squeeze every drop of energy out of their hearts to be able to run for that long without fizzling out.
I'm not saying anyone has to monitor their heart rate, but it's a good way to know if your getting a training effect or not. And my intent for this thread was simple to find out how other people that do use heart rate training do it.
Serious question, why not use pace? Or grade normalized pace if you're running in hilly terrain?
Well for 1, GPS pace usually sucks on most devices (jumps all over the place). I suppose i could use lap pace or average pace, but it's just so much easier to just glance at my HR every once in a while and adjust if needed. My garmin has the HR zones laid out so i can see what zone i'm in with just a quick glance.
Knowing that keeping HR in a certain zone for a certain time will give me a training effect, why not just use HR instead of trying to guess by feel or pace?
Running power seems to be interesting, but i think it still has a long way to go before they even know what the standards are going to be.
You've mentioned something like the bolded several times, but I'm not sure I understand.
My personal experience makes me think it's not so cut and dried as "20 continuous minutes in zone 3, 3x a week, to get 'a training effect'". Any amount of exercise has an effect. (Obviously, one needs to exceed some threshold frequency/volume/intensity/etc. for that effect to be measurable.) Moreover, there are a whole bunch of different types of "training effects" in exercise physiology terms.
When you say (type) it, what do you mean by 'training effect'?
Are you talking about the Garmin "training effect" score where they kind of chop up/quantize something that's in reality kinda more analog, in order to make aerobic/anaerobic benefits of exercise more conceptually digestible and trackable?
I'm not trying to be disputatious here; I'm really trying to understand/communicate, and maybe learn something.
When i was in the army, i went through a fitness course that qualified me to be the fitness instructor for my unit. part of the course was cardio fitness and training effect. Training effect is the effect from exercise that will improve your fitness level (VO2max). the rule of thumb is a minimum of 20 minutes in the cardio zone, and a minimum of 3 times per week to get a minimum training effect. So, if you want a better training effect you should increase the minutes and/or number of sessions per week. Less than that will probably have some benefits, but not enough to increase your fitness level (VO2max). This was back in the 1980's, but i think the basic principle is still valid. In fact, i think i read somewhere recently that they are now recommending at least 30 to 40 minutes at least 3 times per week.
There is probably a lot more to it now a days, but i just stick to the basic principles that i know. I think garmin is on to something with their aerobic and anaerobic training effects, and i try to do workouts that get me above lactate threshold for short bursts as well as more longer zone 3/4 sessions.
It certainly can't hurt to mix it up.
OK, I think I get where you're coming from. I still think the reality maybe isn't that structured in terms of getting fitness results, but that makes sense as a general set of rules of thumb.
When I was actually training, the approach I used (was given by my coach) included some base work (which would've been > 20 minutes continuous), but the more intense workouts tended to be in segments shorter than a race duration (a race would be 8-9 minutes, for me, generally), treated in an interval fashion, so there would likely be 20 minutes of zone 3 (of a 5-zone scheme, if we used that), but not continuous, for example. Sometime during the training week, there would (at many/most times of the year) some zone 4 to near-max, but short. The net result of following a periodized plan of this sort of thing definitely including achieving anaerobic/aerobic training effects.
Also, in my understanding, one standard technique for increasing VO2max is classic Tabata intervals (8 x (20" max effort, 10" easy effort)) - with a warmup and cooldown, of course. The actual body of the workout is therefore only four minutes, and the whole session with WU and CD might be only 20-ish minutes total. A couple of times a week can achieve a result, thouogh the original research was 4x weekly Tabata intervals, 1x longer base pace session, 1x rest day.
So, I think different paths can lead to the same/similar training effects.
But, yes: I agree that mixing it up can't hurt, and that's pretty much how I look at workouts these days. I'm just trying to stay active, have fun, and be happy, not achieve any particular athletic goal. During summer on-water rowing, I do mostly base or intervals (going into zone 3 and occasionally 4 MHR method) picking one or the other or a mix at whim based on weather, energy level and whatnot, maybe totalling 50 minutes of actual boat movement (some of which is low intensity by necessity for turns, docking, etc.). Biweekly spin classes are AHR zone 3 for around 45 minutes, but actual HR drops below that sometimes especially early in each session; I try to hit zone 4 for at least a brief time each class. Winter rowing machine work tends to be higher intensity but shorter (3 x (10' higher steady state, 2' water break and easy rowing) would be a typical example) at AHR in upper zone 3/lower zone 4, occasional peak rates above. I don't really shoot for any particular structure to the week, just try to get some intensity in there somewhere, and not get over-fatigued by overdoing the combinations of duration/intensity.
(I hope I got all those zones right; I usually think of things in quasi-custom RHR zones, but tried to accurately translate to MHR method for clearer communication. ).
IMO, exercise oughta be fun, and I don't have specific athletic goals now, so just mixing it up works for me, too.
Sounds like you are much more structured than i am, and that's probably a good thing.
I try to keep it simple because i only do it for my own personal fitness. I'm 61 so i'm just looking for the fountain of "middle age" now...
I basically go by 2 things.
steady state to improve base aerobic fitness.
intervals to improve anaerobic fitness.
Many times i try to combine them to get the benefits of both in the same workout. I will do run intervals to get my heart rate above lactate threshold, and on the active rest interval i power walk, and try to stay in the cardio zone. The entire workout lasts 45 minutes to an hour, so i figure i get 2 workouts for the price of 1.1 -
The power going into other non-useful work is true on bikes too - where the power meter is only measuring power into the wheel, not the energy/calories used for increased core/arm usage standing up, and other aspects of just sitting at angle even, gripping on climbs/descents, ect.
Though I can't say I've seen a true heavy spin bike creep on a strong rider on carpeted floor.
That would be interesting to see a strong rower capsize purely from misapplied power.1 -
@NorthCascades, that's very interesting. I've wondered what all those funny abbreviations you cyclists use are about.
Rowing - the real one - is not well-measured. I think, at current level of understanding and technology, it can't be. Machine rowing can be, but rowers say "ergs don't float": The fastest on the machine is not necessarily the fastest on the water.
Of course, there is the will/spirit piece of it, as you talk about in cycle racing; but there is also a very large contribution of technique: Bladework, the physics of body movement (contributing to or interfering with movement of boat in the proper direction on the water), and (above the single at least) coordination with others is a huge factor. Properly adjusted equipment can also be a big factor. (So much tweaking of angles of oars to boat to rower to water, in 3 dimensions, affected by athlete size, proportions, flexibility! Bigger collegiate teams can have a staff member - rigger or boatman - who specializes in these equipment issues and other boat/oar maintenance).
My second love is cross country skiing, and a lot of what you talk about sounds familiar. I don't think it's possible to measure ski power, some of it comes through the boots, some of it comes through the poles, but sometimes you use the poles to avoid a fall, and I don't see how a piece of tech can distinguish with 98.5 % accuracy.
I can do a Nordic Track ski machine all day, then go out on a snow trail and fall on my butt constantly. Skiers have to balance while shifting weight around at high speed. Can't practice that indoors - well, I'm doing a lot of exercises that challenge my balance, but technique trumps all. I can only imagine that in real water rowing, it's the same. Except that snow stays put, you have waves.
I lost a (bike) race to a guy who was slower than me. It was a combination of he was clever, and willing to take bigger risks.1 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »My watch warns me if I'm above 175 (I'm 53), but otherwise I pretty much ignore it. I don't care if I'm in a zone. I just care that I'm doing something and burning calories.
For the most part I'd have to agree here. According to most calculations my MHR is somewhere around 171. I'd say it's actually a tad higher than that, and I frequently hit high 150's to low 160's doing HIIT or on extended runs. Most calcs will tell me that I should be shooting for low 150's as a max exercise rate, and sometimes I do watch my HR when I'm trying to train at a lower HR to increase endurance but otherwise I try to ignore it most of the time. I figure if I pass out I can always go back and look to see what my MHR was when it happened lol, but otherwise I've never hit my max. I've seen 171 on my HRM before for short bursts, but didn't feel like I was going to die. Maybe if I kept it up indefinitely. Generally though if I see I'm above 165 I'll back off a bit, and if I'm above 160 for a longer period of time I'll back off a bit as well to try and keep in the high 150's. I'm 49 and have a resting HR of somewhere in the 48bpm range after almost 4 years of being 'fit' and embracing both cardio and weight training 4-5 times a week.
This winter I'm trying to increase my aerobic endurance for running next spring so I've been sticking to high 130's for extended periods (30-45 minutes) at a time. Calorie burn is a bit less but endurance is higher. So it evens out in the end.0 -
@NorthCascades, that's very interesting. I've wondered what all those funny abbreviations you cyclists use are about.
Rowing - the real one - is not well-measured. I think, at current level of understanding and technology, it can't be. Machine rowing can be, but rowers say "ergs don't float": The fastest on the machine is not necessarily the fastest on the water.
Of course, there is the will/spirit piece of it, as you talk about in cycle racing; but there is also a very large contribution of technique: Bladework, the physics of body movement (contributing to or interfering with movement of boat in the proper direction on the water), and (above the single at least) coordination with others is a huge factor. Properly adjusted equipment can also be a big factor. (So much tweaking of angles of oars to boat to rower to water, in 3 dimensions, affected by athlete size, proportions, flexibility! Bigger collegiate teams can have a staff member - rigger or boatman - who specializes in these equipment issues and other boat/oar maintenance).
There's a bit of these technique issues even on a machine (mainly from how much of the effort translates into useful work at the flywheel, because it's possible to expend quite a lot of energy that doesn't translate into measured power).
As a quick example: At one regional rowing machine race I participated in, officials recruited volunteers among women who'd already finished rowing, to stand on the horizontal extension from the front legs of the C2 rowing machines, during some of the men's races. Unless the machine was held down in some fashion, some of these strong guys would make the machine move across the floor, in addition to whatever energy went into the flywheel and got measured in watts. I'm thinking that "move machine across floor" thing is work in the physics sense, but it's not useful work in the rowing sense. (It usually implies technique that would dramatically slow down a boat, if not quickly turn rowing into swimming. ). Some of these people are fast on the machine, though.
For machine rowing, one could calculate something like your NP, I think, but watts at the machine doesn't really equate to work by the body, for reasons like the above (and other forms of material inefficiency, not all of which is beginner-level stuff). On-water is ridiculously worse, especially in multi-rower boats. (Last I read up, a few years back, the physics of the rower/boat system is still not completely well-understood: It's a complex hydrodynamic system, and a complex set of body movements. Bottom line, it's not uncommon for team rowers who put up the best erg scores not to be fastest on water, and vice-versa.
On water, we pretty much have heart rate data (not that closely watched during practice), stroke rating (strokes per minute) and boat pace/speed as the useful measurements. For multi-seat boats, coaches compare individual rowers (and their ability to synch with a particular boat of others) via something called "seat racing". You take two boats, set them a race piece, then swap one rower from each boat into the other boat, and do it again. (As an aside, there are possibly apocryphal, but I suspect actual true, stories of coaches who've lost patience with a particular rowers effort or coachability seat-racing them against a Twinkie. Yes, the snack food.)
How a good bit of this rowing effectiveness stuff works is not how non-rowers think it works.
Yeah I think that while cycling definitely does have an aspect of "if you're riding on a trainer you're not [physically] going anywhere", it pales in comparison to rowing. In cycling you don't really see the effects in a major way until you're riding in a group (though frankly, you have similar issues if you rarely ride in a group...I say looking at myself) and then race tactics are totally different on the road/track than on a virtual race.
As someone who is pretty new to rowing and not at all new to cycling, it's been a really interesting learning process. Recreationally, cycling seems significantly more forgiving because there are far fewer things to pay attention to (not counting traffic...). I should note, I'm only talking about road and track - other people can chime in about other disciplines and I would be shocked if there aren't more things to pay attention to in say, any mountain bike discipline or cross. And then there's artistic cycling and cycle ball which aren't even comparable. Going back to rowing on the water, I can see my technique suffering far more when I'm rowing at a high stroke rate (if I'm doing race pieces or in the one race that I did right after my learn to row 2 class) as opposed to if I'm struggling up a climb or I'm in a world of hurt towards the end of a century. This doesn't really happen when I'm on an erg, but there are far fewer things to pay attention to in that case as well. All that said, I am a novice rower and there are a million and one things that I need to work on.1 -
<snip>
@AnnPT77 - does the single/group rowing include certain training levels to improve say VO2max or LT/AT levels for performance improvement? Or specific long easy for endurance improvement? What is considered endurance actually for rowing?
<snip>
That's a big question! I think it has all those pieces for performance improvement - very structured. For collegiate crews, whose major races are in Spring, there's a tendency to work base in Fall, moving to other adaptations as the season approaches, and intend to peak at conference championships. There are some generic plans out there (Pete Plan is one) that vary the work; the plans I used were a little more fiddly/complicated.
I think that the best way to answer more clearly than that - with apologies for length - is to explain what our training plan looked like. I'll qualify my answer by saying I only have detailed experience with one particular coach's/team's training plan (a successful Div I NCAA women's associate coach and later head coach), and a dozen years back. What I learned in USRowing coaching education and various coaching conferences suggested to me that it wasn't unusual in that setting.
An initial step was a rowing machine step test, where we started at a given pace (500m split), and increased pace by a specified amount every X time interval, while someone else recorded our heart rate every 15 seconds. One kept increasing pace until one couldn't hold the new, higher pace for 5 strokes in a row. HR was graphed for the inflection point with respect to pace, and a target 2000m race pace set for the person based on some form of coachly black magic. (I don't remember what X was: 30 seconds? I think that, but it might have been longer.)
Based on this result, we were given a rating chart, specifying our target pace (500m split) for various stroke ratings from 14spm to 26spm, plus a column for "AT" and "speed" that were by implication higher ratings. (Assumption is similar one-stroke power at all the spm levels, but more physical stress and technical difficulty as spm increases.)
The final component was a periodized training plan that had two parts, a list of categorized workouts, and a calendar. The workout categories were aerobic, anaerobic threshold, race, and lactate tolerance, with several workouts (A, B, C . . .) in each category. The calendar had a section for every day for every week for however long the plan was to cover, including rest days, specifying the workouts ("Aerobic C plus Anaerobic Threshold A" or "5 sets of Aerobic A" or whatever).
One example of each type of workout (keep in mind that you might do > 1 of these per day):
Aerobic - 3 x 10', 2' rest @ ratings 20, 16, 20 (pace based on the personalized rating/split goals)
Anaerobic Threshold - 3 x 6' on, 2' rest @ rating 26
Race - 8 x 250m on, 1' rest, target 2k-1" (1 second per 500m faster than your race-pace goal)
Lactate Tolerance - 2 sets of 6 x (20" sprint/10" rest), 8' active rest b/t sets
Since I was a novice masters rower (age about 46) at that point, my target 2K race pace was pretty slow. Because the team I was on was all masters women with jobs and outside lives, our plan came with a couple of different alternatives for different numbers of training hours we could devote per week, plus the raw data that would let us calculate different numbers of weekly training hours if our spreadsheeting skills were up to it.
The collegiate teams would've had more frequent 2K race tests, and adjustments to their pace targets based on test results, standardized time commitments, and strength/conditioning sessions in addition to the rowing-specific work.
Once on the water, for the collegiate rowers, lots of base work for technique, and more specific race training, with plans more in that same kind of form (e.g., 4 x (500 meters race pace, 2' rest) or whatever). For us masters rowers, on-water time was limited, so mostly technique with a few race-pace pieces, and comments about how to treat it in the context of our training plan (expected to train other days on our own, on rowing machine if no access to other boats).
Note that what is individual pace on the machine is really power; so in multi-person boats, different people of varied strengths can add their power together to get a boat power and pace - the individual rowers don't all need to be power-matched, though they need to be synchronized in various respects. Linked machines (on slides, or linked dynamics) can simulate this to an extent.
What is endurance for rowing? I've always seen rowing described as a short-endurance or power-endurance sport. The commonest generic race strategy (tweaked by every boat/coach) is to start with a sprint, using special strokes to accelerate the boat from a standstill, then settle into race pace (first few hundred meters of 2K); do the body of the race race at the maximum sustainable intensity (usually AT-ish); then take a final sprint at the end (maybe 500m-ish) to leave nothing in the tank after the finish line. That's modified by more detailed race plans, run by the coxswain in bigger boats, about what to do if another boat is overtaking, or if you're overtaking someone else, or similar scenarios, plus various motivational or focus calls (power 10, 10 strokes to focus on the catch, 10 for injured team member Suzie on the sidelines, etc.).
So, the 2K race duration is the demand you train for, but the training is much more volume to build the physical systems/capabilities, of course. For collegiate women, a 2K race usually takes maybe 6-7 minutes-ish depending on conditions; for someone like me, 8-ish minutes would be pretty good. The more rowers, the faster, therefore the shorter the race duration, of course.
Machine racing uses a similar strategy, though there's less involved in initially accelerating the machine vs. the boat, and you usually break up the race plan for motivational/focus purposes rather than overtaking and such. (The monitors in races will tell you where you are vs. competition, but it's hard to focus on it; and your coxswain (yes, machine races allow them) doesn't usually use that info either - they're mostly yelling about your race plan, pace or technique). In machine racing, we were going more for our target pace (meet or exceed) than directly taking on the competition.
Apologies for the silly-long essay; I don't really know how else to answer. Hope that did give some answer, though . . . ideally understandably. 0 -
@NorthCascades, that's very interesting. I've wondered what all those funny abbreviations you cyclists use are about.
Rowing - the real one - is not well-measured. I think, at current level of understanding and technology, it can't be. Machine rowing can be, but rowers say "ergs don't float": The fastest on the machine is not necessarily the fastest on the water.
Of course, there is the will/spirit piece of it, as you talk about in cycle racing; but there is also a very large contribution of technique: Bladework, the physics of body movement (contributing to or interfering with movement of boat in the proper direction on the water), and (above the single at least) coordination with others is a huge factor. Properly adjusted equipment can also be a big factor. (So much tweaking of angles of oars to boat to rower to water, in 3 dimensions, affected by athlete size, proportions, flexibility! Bigger collegiate teams can have a staff member - rigger or boatman - who specializes in these equipment issues and other boat/oar maintenance).
There's a bit of these technique issues even on a machine (mainly from how much of the effort translates into useful work at the flywheel, because it's possible to expend quite a lot of energy that doesn't translate into measured power).
As a quick example: At one regional rowing machine race I participated in, officials recruited volunteers among women who'd already finished rowing, to stand on the horizontal extension from the front legs of the C2 rowing machines, during some of the men's races. Unless the machine was held down in some fashion, some of these strong guys would make the machine move across the floor, in addition to whatever energy went into the flywheel and got measured in watts. I'm thinking that "move machine across floor" thing is work in the physics sense, but it's not useful work in the rowing sense. (It usually implies technique that would dramatically slow down a boat, if not quickly turn rowing into swimming. ). Some of these people are fast on the machine, though.
For machine rowing, one could calculate something like your NP, I think, but watts at the machine doesn't really equate to work by the body, for reasons like the above (and other forms of material inefficiency, not all of which is beginner-level stuff). On-water is ridiculously worse, especially in multi-rower boats. (Last I read up, a few years back, the physics of the rower/boat system is still not completely well-understood: It's a complex hydrodynamic system, and a complex set of body movements. Bottom line, it's not uncommon for team rowers who put up the best erg scores not to be fastest on water, and vice-versa.
On water, we pretty much have heart rate data (not that closely watched during practice), stroke rating (strokes per minute) and boat pace/speed as the useful measurements. For multi-seat boats, coaches compare individual rowers (and their ability to synch with a particular boat of others) via something called "seat racing". You take two boats, set them a race piece, then swap one rower from each boat into the other boat, and do it again. (As an aside, there are possibly apocryphal, but I suspect actual true, stories of coaches who've lost patience with a particular rowers effort or coachability seat-racing them against a Twinkie. Yes, the snack food.)
How a good bit of this rowing effectiveness stuff works is not how non-rowers think it works.
Yeah I think that while cycling definitely does have an aspect of "if you're riding on a trainer you're not [physically] going anywhere", it pales in comparison to rowing. In cycling you don't really see the effects in a major way until you're riding in a group (though frankly, you have similar issues if you rarely ride in a group...I say looking at myself) and then race tactics are totally different on the road/track than on a virtual race.
As someone who is pretty new to rowing and not at all new to cycling, it's been a really interesting learning process. Recreationally, cycling seems significantly more forgiving because there are far fewer things to pay attention to (not counting traffic...). I should note, I'm only talking about road and track - other people can chime in about other disciplines and I would be shocked if there aren't more things to pay attention to in say, any mountain bike discipline or cross. And then there's artistic cycling and cycle ball which aren't even comparable. Going back to rowing on the water, I can see my technique suffering far more when I'm rowing at a high stroke rate (if I'm doing race pieces or in the one race that I did right after my learn to row 2 class) as opposed to if I'm struggling up a climb or I'm in a world of hurt towards the end of a century. This doesn't really happen when I'm on an erg, but there are far fewer things to pay attention to in that case as well. All that said, I am a novice rower and there are a million and one things that I need to work on.
This is straying pretty far from the heart rate monitoring focus of the thread, but one of the things I find interesting about rowing racing is that you're pretty much aiming for the max power per stroke you can achieve, then trying to take more strokes per time interval to be faster as your fitness allows . . . but at any given skill level (especially lower ones ), there's a point where technique breaks down, so as a practical matter you might be faster over the water at a lower stroke rating (strokes per minute) than at higher spm.
I've done some testing of this with my most frequent double sculling partner at different times; knowing your most effective stroke rating is useful. We were capable of rowing in the 30s, but usually faster somewhere in the 20s! I've raced in composite boats (i.e., people from multiple clubs) that thought the more spm they could row, the better. They were wrong.
I think you're right that this effect is less pronounced on machines, but it's still there. Bladework and balance is a bit of a complication, isn't it? 0
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