Welcome to the new edition of the Triple C Coaching newsletter: helping you become your best YOU through endurance sport coaching.
This edition includes:
Physiology 101: Heart Rate - One Piece of the Training Puzzle
Stories from the Motherland: “Respect”
Junior Development: Don’t Predict the Future
Be your best YOU!
Coach Corey
Physiology 101: Heart Rate - One Piece of the Training Puzzle
Heart rate data can be important in evaluating training progress, but it needs to be interpreted with nuance. As a coach, I view heart rate as one piece of the puzzle. When reviewing an athlete’s workout file, I consider heart rate alongside running pace or cycling power, and Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE). Heart rate shows the work’s impact on the body. Pace/power quantifies the work. RPE tells how the athlete experienced the workout.
The most important thing you can understand about heart rate is that it’s impacted by many internal and external factors: freshness and fatigue, illness, caffeine, hydration, temperature, stress, medication, and menstrual cycle (resting heart rate). (It’s a long list and I’ve probably forgotten some!) Many heart rate monitors also fail to provide consistently accurate readings. To compound this issue, smart watches and head units often provide fitness and health messages that are inaccurate (and alarming!). [Curious about this? Learn more here.]
Let’s take a look at several factors that strongly impact heart rate: Freshness, Fatigue, and Temperature.
Freshness
A higher than normal heart rate at X power with a low RPE indicates “freshness.” We often see this at the beginning of a block of training. We label these “fresh” high heart rates as “responsiveness.” Also, when fresh, your heart rate will drop slowly when you back off the pace. I like to think of “responsiveness” as your heart saying, “I am ready to work!”
This is very different from popular culture’s misunderstanding of heart rate: “You want it to be low!”
Yes, over time, you want to be able to go faster at a lower heart rate. This indicates your heart muscle is becoming more efficient at pumping oxygenated blood at a given level of exertion. For example, if over time, the trend is “my average heart rate is lower when riding X power for Y time,” you are likely getting fitter. However, on a day-to-day basis, heart rate at a given power/duration will fluctuate.
Fatigue
When fatigued, your heart rate will run lower than normal at a given power. Both your average and max heart rates will decrease with fatigue. This is usually accompanied by higher RPE. Conversely, a high heart rate with high RPE often suggests onset of illness.
Temperature
External temperature is another factor that can impact heart rate. Many athletes record their highest heart rates during a summer race. In this case, the heart is pumping hard to shunt blood to the peripheral blood vessels for cooling. As a coach, I recognize this phenomenon, and do not reset athletes’ heart rate zones because of data from a hot race. They would never be able to achieve similar heart rate numbers in cooler weather!
Stories from the Motherland: “Respect”
If you have been following me on social media, you know that I retired from professional European racing at the end of March. At my final race, Oostmalle, I was overwhelmed by Belgian “respect.”
Oostmalle is the traditional final race on the international calendar. As such, it is the place where Belgian-based competitors retire. Oostmalle’s convention is to invite the retirees to the podium post-race, where they symbolically retire by hanging their bike on a hook. Over the years, I have watched, admired, and cried as legends in my sport retired there. Never in a million years did I imagine hanging my own bike on the Oostmalle hook!
I’ve always believed myself to be an outsider in Belgium: neither Belgian nor Dutch, older than most, and only (barely) able to hang on to the back of the “best-in-the-world” pack. Imposter syndrome is real!
Perhaps you know how this story ends: I retired on stage, hanging my bike on the hook. The word I heard over and over that day, from the announcers, strangers, and friends, was “respect.”
It’s a bit hard to explain how Belgians use the word “respect.” It’s not necessarily applied to a standout performance or race win. I think it more recognizes hard work and perseverance. Belgium is a tough place in the winter: cold, wet, and dreary. Working hard without protesting is their ethos, so it’s no wonder “respect” is afforded to those who do hard things.
To be honest, seven winters in a row, I never afforded myself “respect” for the hard thing I was doing. Instead, I measured the distance between myself and the winners and found myself lacking.
But that moment on stage, I felt “respect” all around me. I had earned the Belgians’ respect. That dawning recognition might ultimately change how I look back on my career.
Junior Development: Don’t Predict the Future
“If she’s this good now, just imagine how she will be.”
I was a “junior star” in Nordic skiing, so I remember people constantly predicting that someday I would make the Olympics, the U.S. Ski Team, etc. Spoiler: it did not come true. Imagine my disappointment that I “didn’t live up to expectations.”
We know now that junior success in endurance sport absolutely does not predict elite or adult success. There’s a lot of physical maturation between the junior and senior ranks and it’s hard to predict the timeline or changes. Boys usually improve in a consistent upward trajectory, but the timeline is quite unpredictable with “late bloomers” being left behind. Girls have a slightly more difficult path: often, they experience a performance plateau or drop with the associated weight gain of puberty.
It’s important to note that young women do adjust and reach performance peaks as adults. It’s just that this adjustment takes time (and can be psychologically difficult). As Fleshman says, when she speaks with young female athletes, she is surprised that “No one has told them that the record holders and medal winners are grown-ass women, not girls, all of whom had tough years once upon a time; and that their own best years will truly begin in their mid-20s.”
For both boys and girls, the timing of puberty can have massive impacts on when/whether they are “talent ID-ed” and supported by National Governing Bodies (e.g. USA Cycling) or earn NCAA scholarships.
I recommend two excellent resources on how male/female maturation affects endurance sport performance:
Optimal Talent Development in Cycling: A Guide for Parents and Coaches by Marco van Bon and James Spragg
Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man's World by Lauren Fleshman
Besides maturation rates, there are all sorts of confounding factors that affect who ultimately makes it to the top, from birth month to financial and technical support and coaching to avoiding injury and disordered eating. Also, athletes might find other academic, artistic, sport, or social pursuits that interest them more!
So, the next time you want to compliment a young athlete:
DO compliment their effort and achievements in the present.
DON’T predict future success. This heaps pressure on them and steals their present.
Teach your athlete to enjoy the moment and chase shorter term goals. The far-off future is anything but assured!