WHY HEART RATE STILL MATTERS

It might play second fiddle to power in the modern hierarchy of training metrics, but heart rate should not be overlooked, argues Charlie Allenby, as he explores BPM’s unceasing relevance

- Charlie Allenby and David Bradford

In recent years, the power meter has become the primary means of measuring performance for cyclists, even at the amateur level. This has meant that benchmarking fitness – FTP, watts per kilo, training zones, etc – is easily accomplished and no longer requires an expensive trip to the science lab. But is this widespread devotion to power distracting us from the importance of an older form of fitness measurement, the humble heart rate monitor?

In this feature, I want to assess the ongoing relevance and usefulness of monitoring beats per minute. What insights into our performance are picked up in our heart rate traces while not registering on our power meters? Could keeping an eye on heart rate help us, for instance, in spotting underlying problems before it’s too late? Firstly, it’s time for a quick science lesson…

Back to basics

Your heart is made up of four chambers – the left and right atrium (upper chambers) and the left and right ventricles (lower chambers). In a nutshell, a heartbeat is the two-part process whereby blood is passed from the upper to lower chambers (part one) and then pumped out of the heart as the lower chambers contract (part two). The blood from the right ventricle goes to pick up oxygen from the lungs, while the oxygenated blood from the left ventricle is sent around the body. The two-part nature of the beat explains the ‘lup-dup’ sound of your heart.