Heart Rate vs. Perceived Exertion in Cyclists
In cycling there are several ways to gauge how hard you are working. The first and most common method is heart rate monitoring. The second, less common but just as effective, is perceived exertion. There is also a third called power monitoring but most cyclists do not have access to this kind of sophisticated equipment.
What many cyclists don’t know is that heart rate isn’t as accurate a gauge as many people would like to think. In this post we will discuss why this is so as well as why perceived exertion, in many instances, can actually prove to be a more accurate gauge.
Heart rate monitoring tells you just that, how fast your heart is pumping. If you take a sedentary person off of the couch, put them on a bike and tell them to go at a decent clip for five minutes, by the end their heart rate will have raised drastically, even though they may not be working that hard. On the other hand you can take a very fit athlete and have him pedal at 120 RPMs for five minutes at a decent resistance and his heart rate only increase slightly, even though he is putting forth a great effort. To overcome this discrepancy many elite cyclists prefer to use perceived exertion in conjunction with heart rate.
Level Effort
1 Very Light
2 Light
3 Moderate
4 Hard
5 Very Hard
6 Maximal
A common way to judge perceived exertion is by creating a chart using the numbers of perceived exertion. Each time you workout you want to give the session a number coinciding with an exertion level from the chart. It takes a few weeks of various exercises to get the feel of each level, but once you get a general idea the chart will become an invaluable training tool.
For example, when you write up your weekly training schedule instead of putting just 1 hour Tuesday, 5 hours Wednesday etc. you can put 1 hours Tuesday at level 4, 5 hours Wednesday at level 3. This method is a lot easier than monitoring heart rate but just as effective in training.
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DS Carroll is a consultant for Biomedical Research Laboratories. Biomedical Research Laboratories market scientifically based nutritional supplements for endurance athletes including supplements for cyclists, runners, triathletes, and mixed martial arts. Visit http://www.epoboost.com to learn more about how EPO-Boost can increase VO2 max, running economy and endurance. Patent pending EPO-BOOST ingredients have been shown to increase VO2 max and running economy in college athletes. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=DS_Carroll |
How will you win?
When you imagine winning that next big race, how do you think you are going to win it? Do you think of all the hard work you are going to putting in, in order to be in the proper shape to win the race? Do you think you will be able to just get lucky and win? Or are you hoping that the other guy just forgot to do his training this month?
Chances are, the other guy has been training full blast every day. Which of course means, you are going to have to bring your “A game” to the line. Don’t for one second think you are going to win, just by showing up. It is going to take lots of hard work and dedication on your part……….. unless of course you just want to take the chance that the other guy is thinking the same thing about you, and hoping you haven’t been training, so he didn’t either.
Negativity kills……..
Have you ever been around, or are now around, people who are constantly putting everyone around them down, so that they will look better? You know these people, they are never happy, and constantly have something negative to say.
Someone told me once that negativity is like a tornado, one person can say something negative, and it will such someone else in. Then in walks another person, and they get sucked in as well, it just grows and grows. The only way to stop this negativity tornado is to be the positive ray of sunshine. It will break up that tornado in record time!
You will find that when you are about to go into a race, whether it be distance running, or competitive mountain biking, the best thing for you is to have a clear positive frame of mind. Nothing is accomplished when your mind is full of negativity.
You have trained hard, been using your nutritional supplements like you are supposed to, this is your moment to shine. Stay away from that negativity tornado, be the ray of sunshine, of hope………. and you can win every time!
Go all out!
When you see that you are not going to win the race, what do you do? Do you just shut down, and quit, or do you still go all out at your fastest, just to see what you can do?
If you have been training, and doing everything that you are supposed to be doing, then you will use this opportunity as a training session as well. You should give it all you’ve got, make that person ahead of you really work to win this race! Don’t just give it over. At the end of this race, the winner is going to know that he, or she, is really going to have to step up their game if they think they are going to win another race against you.
They will know that you have been doing something different, especially if you’ve been getting in all of the nutritional supplements that an elite athlete in training requires. You may even find that the winner comes over to find out what you’ve been doing to step up your game.
If you haven’t been getting your supplements, isn’t it about time to start pushing your game a little harder?
Happiness?
What is happiness to you? Is it having as many possessions as you can possibly gather along the way? Is happiness being able to say you have more than the neighbor down the street, or that you are better than them?
I used to think that “stuff” made me happy. When I was having a bad day, I would go shopping. I literally still have stuff in bags that has never been taken out of the bag once I got it home. Of course, all of this shopping, never made the issues at hand go away. In fact, in some instances, made them worse.
What I have found is that true happiness comes from within yourself. You have to be comfortable with yourself, and love yourself. If you want to be the best athlete you can possibly be, then do it. With the right tools, and nutrition, you can absolutely achieve this goal, and you know that will be a truly happy day when you can look at yourself in the mirror, and say that you are a winner. When you can actually see your achievements after all of the hard work you have put in, you will be so filled with pride and joy. You may even find that you are passing on that same feeling of personal motivation to others, and spreading happiness without even trying! All of this, because you worked on yourself, instead of trying to “keep up with the Jones’s” which of course will just make anyone of us crazy!
It’s time for a change.
Have you ever woke up, looked around you, and decided that it’s time for some changes? The biggest changes in life happen from within. Remember, you can only control what you do, only you. You can not control what anyone else does, feels, or thinks. You only have control over you.
If you are needing change in your life, but you are thinking that the problem is never you, then it is really time to wake up. You can always change your situation. It doesn’t have to be anything major to end up making a huge change in your life. It can be something as small as making that statement to the boss, or finally taking that first step towards getting back into the gym.
It’s all up to you.
Definition of insanity
Have you ever heard that saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”? I believe it was Albert Einstein that said it.
The same goes for your training. If you are doing the same workout routine day in and day out, all you are going to do is peak, and never go any farther. You have to add different workout routines to achieve nicely chiseled physique.
You should have a separate routine for each day that you work out, or even just rotate your routines.
Of course, you have to also consider what type of foods you are consuming. The athlete who fuels his body with twinkies and snickers will never get as far as the athlete who chooses wholesome and natural nutrients to fuel his or her muscles.
How many people does it take?
Have you ever wondered how many people are behind that star athlete you watch every weekend? Even though it looks like the athletes are superhuman, and were just born this great ability, they have trained for years and years to get to this point, and you can bet that they didn’t do it alone.
They probably started out with the support of their parents, maybe they were really great on the middle school or high school team. That is where the coach stepped in, and starts to teach them how to use their natural talents. They will also most likely have a trainer that will help them focus on their body strenths and weeknesses. Of course, last but not least, they will have a nutritionist that helps them get the right amount of nutrients to help feed their muscles and make them develop into the superhuman body you see today.
If you are trying to make yourself into a better athlete, know that you are going to need a support team. You may not need as many people on your team as the professional athlete, but you will need all the help you can get. Remember, without the proper nutrition and guidance, you could actually end up hurting yourself, instead of pushing yourself to greatness.
Challenges make our lives more interesting….
When you wake up in the morning, do you think, “Ugg, another day…. can’t I just sleep a bit longer?”, or do you wake up ready to face the challenges that lay ahead? If you are the latter, then good for you! I know there are a lot of people out there, myself included, who have a hard time staying motivated and focused. Have you ever thought that maybe the difference is in the nutrients that we are providing for our bodies?
If you take one person, who only eats junk food all the time, and compare them to a person who eats the right balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats…….. you will simply be amazed. On the one side, you will notice someone with a lackluster outlook on life, nothing special, nowhere to be, just go to work, and go home. Blah! Then you take a look at the other person, just brimming with energy, bright eyes, and always on the go. The difference is quite astonishing.
Sports nutrition doesn’t have to be just for the elite athletes in life. For some of us, just life can be a competitive sport all on its own. The stay at home mom, who is always on the go, and never seems to have any time to eat right or the busy executive who is always working through the lunch break. You need good nutrition also, your goal at the end of the day may not be a medal, or anything shiny……..the fact that you made it though another challenging day, is quite an accomplishment that you can be proud of everyday.
Don’t Fear the Reaper, Run Him Over
The Chinese Symbol for "Long Life"
In the end of it all, there is death. Inevitable. Depressing. Lonely. What can you do about it?
Pretty much nothing.
But, you can prolong the end and live every single day until your time is up to the fullest!
There are really two schools of thinking when it comes to prolonging life: aggressive and passive. Passive prolonging is associated with thinking your way into a positive and healthy life. Passive prolonging forces you to push out all negativity in your life. It also utilizes in-store antioxidants and colon cleanses for internal cleanliness.
And then, there are the aggressive life livers. The one’s who prolong their life with healthy, but satisfying, diets; intense physical activity for fun and for a workout, the one’s who take supplements, but only all natural and legal ones, to increase their endurance. There’s nothing wrong with either method of prolonging, and really neither of them can stop you from getting hit by a bus if its meant to happen, but it’s always good to know your options.
Some say that the dirt from Easter Island has the secret, or polygamy gives us more time (not recommended), but we just keep telling ourselves that there is a Holy Grail out there waiting to be found. Until that time though, we need to use our love for sports and healthy lifestyles to have an enjoyable and lengthy life.
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