Daily Archives: 2014-05-26

Comparing Heart Rate Zones and Rate of Perceived Exertion Zones

Comparing HR Zones and RPE Zones

When preparing my training sessions on the turbo, all workouts and articles emphasise the importance of training in the correct zone in order to get the most benefit. Using a heart rate monitor and a display that you can watch whilst training means that the cadence and resistance (or gear) can be tweaked during an interval to keep the HR in the recommended zone.

Some videos/workouts use heart rate zones (HRZ) as the measurement, others use the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) method.  I originally wanted to find a quick way to translate RPEs into HRZs because the cycle GPS units I used (first a Bryton Rider 50, and now a Garmin Edge 800) can display a heart rate zone, as well as the BPM figure.

I originally started this spreadsheet to give me a quick sheet to print out sop that when I used an RPE scale workout, I could just translate it into the HRZ method so it would be consistent with my cycle computer.

Of course nothing is every as easy or straightforward as it first appears ….. Continue reading Comparing Heart Rate Zones and Rate of Perceived Exertion Zones