Heart rate vs pain

Could you explain exactly what type of pain you are talking about? Muscle pain, chest pain, leg pain, headache?

gruppo said:

Could you explain exactly what type of pain you are talking about? Muscle pain, chest pain, leg pain, headache?

Sorry - I should have been more clear about "pain". I am not sure the correct term is but I probably mean "perceived effort". For example, I reached over 170 today and didn't even realize I was anywhere near that figure. Other days I have rapidly gone to, say, 160 or so and felt completely at my limit.

So, not "pain" in the medical sense - I mean the degree to which I have "more in the tank" :-)

Mark

It sounds like your talking about riding with a sufficient warmup versus riding without warming up, which can have exactly that effect. A 5-10 minute gradual warmup period acts to get muscles loose and the cardio system going.

With a warmup, you might be able to ride 30 miles without a problem, but if you just jump on the bike and go balls-to-the-wall right off the bat, you'll be exhausted in 2-3 miles.

markwill said:

A simple subject line to start what may well turn into a technically deep thread :-)

What is the relationship between the "pain" I might experience (in terms of either cardiovascular or muscular constraints) and my heart rate? By way of example, I don't see any direct relationship - I can reach a highish heart rate (say into the 170's) without really associating it with real pain providing I ease myself towards that heartrate over a period of time. By comparison, if I start afresh and go flat out to reach 170+ then I am in agony pretty quick!!!!

I don't need detailed, scientific descriptions but, at a simplistic level, pain appears to be associated with the RATE of heart rate increase (it's "acceleration"😉. Is that broadly accurate?

I guess lactic acid is part of all this too - but I don't understand that yet :_)

Mark

You're talking about your body and the experience of pain on the bike, so this is always going to be fairly subjective. But if you're going to train hard, especially interval type training, then pain is unavoidable. I think what you're probably discussing here is what it feels like to exceed your lactate threshold (LT).

At or below your LT, your body can handle and process all the wastes and by-products created by your muscles. Theoretically, with sufficient food and water, you could ride at this level forever. My experience riding below LT is that it doesn't involve considerable pain at all. But as soon as you put the hammer down and exceed your LT, lactic acid builds rapidly in your muscles (mainly because your body has exceeded its capacity to process the muscular 'waste products'😉 This is what causes the feeling of "pain". I'm fairly sure that this pain/LT relationship is fairly direct - below LT you generally won't feel much pain - but as you begin to exceed it (say as you put the hammer down on a long climb) - you'll know all about it. Burning legs, feeling of shortness of breath, etc. My suspicion is that your lactic threshold would be somewhere in the vicinity of 170bpm. But as I said, these things are all subjective. Some days I can ride flat out, feel like I'm dying on a climb, and my HR won't get much higher than 180bpm. Other days I can ride at my HR max (roughly 195bpm) yet the "pain" isn't noticeably worse than the previous 180bpm efforts, despite the heart doing more actual work. It just seems that some days your body is better prepared to handle and manage the workload.

On a final note, I'm reminded of an interview with former Scottish pro Robert Millar. He noted that while he was able to climb faster than most other riders in the peloton, it didn't mean that it was any less painful!

so19 said:

You're talking about your body and the experience of pain on the bike, so this is always going to be fairly subjective. But if you're going to train hard, especially interval type training, then pain is unavoidable. I think what you're probably discussing here is what it feels like to exceed your lactate threshold (LT).

At or below your LT, your body can handle and process all the wastes and by-products created by your muscles. Theoretically, with sufficient food and water, you could ride at this level forever. My experience riding below LT is that it doesn't involve considerable pain at all. But as soon as you put the hammer down and exceed your LT, lactic acid builds rapidly in your muscles (mainly because your body has exceeded its capacity to process the muscular 'waste products'😉 This is what causes the feeling of "pain". I'm fairly sure that this pain/LT relationship is fairly direct - below LT you generally won't feel much pain - but as you begin to exceed it (say as you put the hammer down on a long climb) - you'll know all about it. Burning legs, feeling of shortness of breath, etc. My suspicion is that your lactic threshold would be somewhere in the vicinity of 170bpm. But as I said, these things are all subjective. Some days I can ride flat out, feel like I'm dying on a climb, and my HR won't get much higher than 180bpm. Other days I can ride at my HR max (roughly 195bpm) yet the "pain" isn't noticeably worse than the previous 180bpm efforts, despite the heart doing more actual work. It just seems that some days your body is better prepared to handle and manage the workload.

On a final note, I'm reminded of an interview with former Scottish pro Robert Millar. He noted that while he was able to climb faster than most other riders in the peloton, it didn't mean that it was any less painful!

Good call......... i feel similar when i have rested inadequately, its as if there is no density within my legs, they feel weeker than normal, and they do suffer fatigue alot quicker, but after adequate rest and hydration and the right food then the power is there again.

think back to the times when you have suffered the greatest, when you first started to ride your bike did it feel like the tyres where deflaited, as if there was an abnormal amount friction under the tyres.

next time you suffer, try and listen to yourself, take notice of how you feel right at the beginning. i usually know within the first 2 or 3 minutes weather i'm in for a good ride or hard strenuous, struggler and as stated it proberbly is due to concentration of fluids within the muscle tissues. typical effects of overtraining.......................