What’s your threshold HR?

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mengqiz86
mengqiz86 Posts: 176 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Those who monitors HR while training - have you ever measured your threshold HR? Say through a tempo run or a FTP ride? I’ve been measuring mine and it stays around 175. I wonder if there’s room to improve.

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  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    165 bpm on a bike.

    When you first start to exercise your threshold heart rate will improve, but that levels off at your genetic limit pretty quickly.
  • OldAssDude
    OldAssDude Posts: 1,436 Member
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    If you are talking about your lactate threshold, it will improve as your cardio fitness level improves, but you should get your heart rate to that level or above that level. Like doing intervals for example.

    I think it is the heart rate that you can maintain for no more than an hour straight, but there are tests you can do to determine it, or you can have it done in a lab.

    I think for the average person it is about 85% of MHR, and elite athletes can be in the low 90%'s of MHR.
  • ajwcyclist2016
    ajwcyclist2016 Posts: 161 Member
    edited January 2019
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    threshold hr Is a personal thing. I'm not sure how to find in running, but in cycling is a simple case of a warm up. Then hit the lap button and go as hard as you can. Then press the lap button. From this you'll be able to go and find training zones in things like garmin connect or polar myzone
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    My sustainable threshold is about 157 - 159 bpm compared to my absolute max HR of about 175bpm.
    (I very rarely see numbers in the 170's.)

    I felt I paced a recent 20min cycling FTP test pretty well. Red trace shows 156bpm by 6 mins and slow drift upwards to 161 near the end of the test. I'm struggling to maintain my power from about the 8 min mark as you can see from the blue trace.

    I get an initial improvement at the start of my winter training but that's probably just dialling in my pacing accurately and getting used to the feeling of operating steadily at my threshold which is a very different feel to outdoor cycling.

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  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    ajwcyclist2016 wrote: »
    threshold hr Is a personal thing. I'm not sure how to find in running, but in cycling is a simple case of a warm up. Then hit the lap button and go as hard as you can. Then press the lap button. From this you'll be able to go and find training zones in things like garmin connect or polar myzone

    I've got a Garmin Fenix 3HR and I'd need to get a chest strap in order to test my lactate threshold. It's a similar test, but my watch on it's own won't do it. I don't know if the 5 series will.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,676 Member
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    In the last two tempo runs I did, my HR averaged about 173, the one before was much lower, averaging 136, but that was probably off since I rarely am that low, except the first mile of an easy run. I have a wrist HRM, so it isn't that accurate. My maximum is around 190.
  • inglysh731
    inglysh731 Posts: 42 Member
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    I'm 40. Can hold 180 bpm for about an hour. Can't get much higher than that regardless.

    Apparently max is 195, but I'll only hit it a couple times a year - recently did a 2 min effort averaging 160% of ftp, it stuck right tight to 180, 181.

    Threshold set by training peaks using coggin (5).
  • Vladimirnapkin
    Vladimirnapkin Posts: 299 Member
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    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    ajwcyclist2016 wrote: »
    threshold hr Is a personal thing. I'm not sure how to find in running, but in cycling is a simple case of a warm up. Then hit the lap button and go as hard as you can. Then press the lap button. From this you'll be able to go and find training zones in things like garmin connect or polar myzone

    I've got a Garmin Fenix 3HR and I'd need to get a chest strap in order to test my lactate threshold. It's a similar test, but my watch on it's own won't do it. I don't know if the 5 series will.

    I just got a Wahoo Tickr HR strap to pair with my Fénix 3HR. (Literally sitting here with the box just now opened!) I like the wrist HR monitor, but it doesn't seem to be as consistent or reliable as I need for HR training, or workouts where I am trying to be in a specific range. Hopefully this strap will do the trick!
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    ajwcyclist2016 wrote: »
    threshold hr Is a personal thing. I'm not sure how to find in running, but in cycling is a simple case of a warm up. Then hit the lap button and go as hard as you can. Then press the lap button. From this you'll be able to go and find training zones in things like garmin connect or polar myzone

    You can find it the same way for running or cycling, other sports too.

    Go all out for 30 minutes, treat the entire thing as a race. Lap after 10 minutes. Your average HR for the last 20 is very close to your LTHR.

    This works because you're looking for the maximum you can sustain. It tends to work better after a few times because you learn how to take the test.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    ajwcyclist2016 wrote: »
    threshold hr Is a personal thing. I'm not sure how to find in running, but in cycling is a simple case of a warm up. Then hit the lap button and go as hard as you can. Then press the lap button. From this you'll be able to go and find training zones in things like garmin connect or polar myzone

    I've got a Garmin Fenix 3HR and I'd need to get a chest strap in order to test my lactate threshold. It's a similar test, but my watch on it's own won't do it. I don't know if the 5 series will.

    There's a feature in some high end Garmins where you run freely and sometimes it'll tell you at the end it found your LTHR. That works differently, it uses HRV (why it requires a chest strap) to detect when you cross your threshold. That's how their auto FTP works too. In theory that approach ought to be the most accurate, if it's implemented perfectly.

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