I completely understand that, if I specify 80 watts, it will go to 80 watts. That’s not how I would define “forcing”.
FYI, I designed a short program earlier that contained a HR+ segment. It was in a segment calling for 110 watts and a listed BPM of 95 (not my typical limit), just to observe how the program would work. I did not reach 95 in this segment until watts= 130+, validating that (as had previously been pointed out), HR+ is the driver. Here I was “forced” to accept an increased watt load compared to what I had intended. Since I don’t consider training, I have never purposefully exercised for a prolonged period at what I would consider maximum acceptable HR. It will take some time for me to come up with the best workout formula to (hopefully) achieve my goal.
FWIW, before being placed on a beta blocker in August, I could easily workout on my elliptical trainer at 125-130 BPM for over 10 minutes. Now, that same level of “work” barely raises my HR to 105. It’s a new world for me, and I’m trying to find a happy medium. The first time that I tried my new bike on Saturday, my HR rose to 105 with a reading of 230 watts (pacing 60 RPM) which would appear to be too significant a load for my purpose.
I don’t understand the different interpretation of “forcing” between these two examples
ERG with 80 watts target. Forces me to ride at 80 watts.
HR+ with 95 bpm target. Forces me to ride at around 95 bpm
If you want (particular portions of) your workouts to be at a specific power, use ERG. HR will vary and you will need to keep an eye on it in case you need to manually intervene to reduce power if HR rises.
If you want (particular portions of) your workouts to be at a specific HR, use HR+. It will take care of the power to keep your HR close to the target.
As your primary concern rightly seems to be on HR, then I am struggling to see why HR+ could not work for your use case.
There is no need to set it at the maximum level, you can set it at a lower level (say -5 / -10 bpm). Or change it for different intervals of the workout, just a you can change the power for different intervals of an ERG workout.
Is 20 minutes at 95 bpm better than 10 minutes at 105 bpm in your situation?
Yes I believe he wants HR+ to be something different than it is, his case is more rare use which is limiter rather than target. As you point out he can do the same thing now with our product, its just if power targets are too high he has to watch HR.
To make it clear these intervals are exactly the same, power in an hr segment is just for visual use, unless you manually switch to erg while doing hr segments.
Is 20 minutes at 95 bpm better than 10 minutes at 105 bpm in your situation?
If we’re talking about the higher HR due to increased ERG, then the answer is YES. According to my Cardiologist, considering my underlying complex heart disease (a component of which is non-athletic hypertrophy), an appreciable load (higher ERG) in the moment represents more cardiac stress than lower work (ERGs) spread out over a longer time. Higher ERGs demands the muscular walls of the heart to work “harder”, rather than “faster”. I need to limit the maximum force/work to avoid additional wall stress.
I truly appreciate the responses that have been provided since I first asked these questions. Based on thoughts which were provided, I think that the most ideal solution of having a structured workout with a variable ride profile yet respecting my HR concerns (unavailable to me before upgrading to the FTMS bike and discovering TrainerDay) is to construct a program where EVERY SEGMENT of the workout is based on varying % of my acceptable HR limit. That will be able to factor in how my body is responding every day while still providing a workout of continuously varying intensity that respects my requirement for monitoring cardiac stress due to excessive workload at any moment.
I’m honestly excited to give this concept a go! Thanks to all!
actually different days you have different workouts, once you know what % of ftp is your limited power, say 70% of ftp is 100bpm, then any workout that goes to 60% should be fine, you just have to slightly pay attention on some days it might get close. On days that you want to go to max hr, just find workouts, clone/copy and edit them and the parts above 60% just change them to be hr targets
I’ve started by creating a 25 min. ramp up-down workout to 100 BPM (for 3 minutes) which I don’t expect to be all that taxing on any workout day.
I’ve yet to use on the fly HR+ (because it was previously overlapped on my iPad), but I’m looking forward to finding out if I can increase a segment’s HR on those days where my ERG isn’t particularly high per HR segment.
In the meantime, I’ve dug out an older smaller Samsung tablet (Tab A7 Lite) which doesn’t have that problem in portrait mode, but DOES have overlapping in landscape mode on my saved workouts. Go figure…
With the Tab A7 Lite, everything is OK in the portrait orientation, but in landscape the entire graph is absent as well as overlap of the row of buttons. I’d be happy to attempt any changes in the display that you might think worthwhile.
