5 Fixable Reasons Your Heart Rate Is High While Cycling

For coaching: email me with subject line “coaching” to anthony@roadmancycling.com

Today Anthony talks about the 5 fixable reasons your heart rate is high while cycling — Same power, higher HR? In this episode Anthony shows you how to spot what’s really going on and how to bring that number down without losing speed or enjoyment. You’ll get quick fixes you can use today and simple protocols for the next month, plus a bonus myth-buster that might save a perfectly good sensor from the bin.

Go check out our other piece of content “5 Fixable Reasons Your Heart Rate Is High While Cycling” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJwg183i9C8

If you would like to contact Anthony about the Not Done Yet Project and find out more you can email him at anthony@roadmancycling.com

Anthony talks about an amazing interview with Sports Nutritionist Sharon Madigan. Click here to see that – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsChu3VZ1NE

A BIG shoutout to our incredible sponsors –

⁠WAHOO ⁠
Wahoo has been at the forefront of elevating indoor training for years. They have everything in the range that you could possibly need to create a “pain cave” that makes you want to get those indoor sessions done. Go check out the Wahoo KICKR BIKE PRO, which is their incredible indoor bike and all their range at https://eu.wahoofitness.com/

⁠Parlee Cycles ⁠
“Whether it’s a tough day, a gruelling training session, an epic road trip or sitting on the side of the road, exhausted and wondering how you’ll get to the top… The answer is regularly to just get back in the saddle and ride. Ride The F…ing Bike. RTFB!”
Go check out their amazing bikes at https://www.parleecycles.com/

⁠4Endurance⁠
Pro level fuel, made accessible. Myself and Sarah trust 4Endurance for all our fuelling needs. Their range is HUGE and won’t break the bank. Go check them out here https://4endurance.com/

NOMIO is clinically proven to:
Lower lactate levels, Reduce oxidative stress, Improve training adaptations And deliver a noticeable boost from the very first dose.
Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.drinknomio.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and check out this game changing supplement.

EXPOSURE LIGHTS Level up your night rides—check out the updated Exposure Lights bar range today at www.exposurelights.com If you’re in North America and run a shop, pre-orders are open now; everyone else, hit your local bike store or Exposure online and tell them Roadman sent you.

Chapters –

0:00 5 Fixable Reasons Your Heart Rate Is High
1:28 Reason No.1 – This One Is So Easy To Fix
4:09 Reason No. 2 – This Is Going To Give You Very Quick Results
9:52 Reason No. 3 – The Fix Will Improve Every Aspect Of Your Riding
12:01 Reason No.4 – Cut Down On These Where Possible
15:42 Reason No. 5 – Focus On These (BIG UNLOCK)
17:37 The Problem With Heart Rate Chest Straps & Sensors
19:14 Always Ask Yourself These 3 Questions

Today I’m going to talk to you about five reasons your heart rate is high and how you can fix them. So you have the same power but your heart rate is higher. You’re riding along at your usual endurance wattage but your heart rate is like 10 beats higher and it’s climbing. Questions start popping into your mind. Did your fitness vanish overnight? Is your heart rate strap broken or worse? Are you secretly unfit? Okay, breathe. Relax. You’re not broken. You’re probably tripping over one of five totally fixable mistakes that I see every single week when I’m reviewing athletes training files. Fix these and you can bring that heart rate down next week without a problem, without losing speed or enjoyment. If you stick around till the very end of this video, I’m going to give you one bonus myth which I’ve encountered through the years. And this will save you from throwing a perfectly good heart rate strap and sensor in the bin. I’m Anthony Walsh. This is the Roadman Cycling Podcast. I’m a former pro cyclist and coach and I’ve looked at thousands of rider files on training peaks and vecta and a lot of times I’ve noticed this trend where heart rate sits stubbornly high for the same power. So today I’m going to show you exactly what to change quick fixes that you can implement today and then longer protocols that you can run for the next month which would be a longerterm solution to this problem. Now a quick note before we jump in. This is educational. I’m not a medical doctor. This is not medical advice. If you do have cardiac symptoms or concerns, go talk to your doctor. Right, that little disclaimer out of the way. Let’s get after it. The first reason that I see for this fixably high heart rate, it’s dehydration and low sodium. So, what you’ll notice is everything feels fine for the first half an hour to 40 minutes at a steady power output and then heart rate starts to ever so slightly creep up. Two beats, four beats, eight beats, before you know it, you’re north of 10 beats higher. and it never really settles. Perceived effort rises and you start over breathing a little. You might even feel weirdly thirsty, but only after you’re already way behind on your hydration. So, what’s going on? When you sweat, you lose fluid and electrolytes, especially sodium. That reduces plasma volume, the part of your blood that’s mostly water. With less volume returning to the heart each beat, your body bumps the heart rate to maintain cardiac output at the same workload. same power but at a higher cost. Now the quick fix to this that you can do today is you can start the ride topped up. Drink like 500 to 750 mil of water in the hour before you roll out the gate and start your ride and include roughly 5 to 800 mg of sodium, not sugar alone, sodium. Then put a reminder in your Hammerhead unit to sip water every 10 to 15 minutes just so you don’t forget. And if it’s warm or windy, just bring an extra bottle. Don’t be afraid to bring a third bottle out on the bike with you. Throw it in your back pocket or plan a garage stop to refuel mid ride. If you’re on the turbo, you really need to get serious about hydration. You need to treat hydration as almost as important as the workout, not some ancillary afterthought. It’s not an optional extra. The longer term fix for this problem is you need to learn your sweat rate. I’ve talked about this in a previous interview with Dr. Sharon Madigan on the channel where we talk about a detailed protocol and I’m actually playing around with flow bio at the moment to understand my own sweat rate. But to summarize the conversation with Char Madigan and you can dive deeper into that, you need to weigh yourself before and after a steady error with minimum clothing and no bathroom breaks. Each kilogram lost is about a liter of fluid. replace that across the next ride and salt those bottles accordingly. If you love coffee, enjoy it, but don’t use espresso as a substitute for electrolytes. And if you’re a salty sweater with those white streaks on your kit, you know those guys towards the higher end of those sodium recommendations per bottle. It’s not macho to suffer a dry mouth on training spins. As I say, that full protocol with Dr. Shara Madigan, we’ll link that below. That’s definitely worth checking out. Reason number two, heat and poor cooling. This is the silent villain of indoor training that no one really wants to talk about and any warm days outside. What you’ll notice is you sit down on the turbo trainer and you’re super proud of your discipline actually getting onto the turbo trainer. You jump into your zone 2 power and your heart rate’s already flirting with zone 3 or tempo inside the first 10 to 15 minutes. Or if you’re outside on a sunny day, you hit a climb and your heart rate jumps even though your power hasn’t changed at all. So what’s going on here? The mechanism behind this is when you’re hot, your body shunts blood to the skin to dump heat. That extra circulatory work on top of the work to your muscles. The thermostat cranks up the sympathetic drive. Your heart rate goes up to achieve the same power and it will keep rising unless you actively cool yourself down. You’ll experience this if you ever tried heat training. And I’ve talked in detail about heat training protocols and I’ve played with it myself and it’s quite an uncomfortable feeling because your heart rate’s so elevated during these heat training protocols. If you are experiencing this, the quick fix is to get two decent fans and point them at your torso, not your face, chest and torso. One from the front and one from the side. If you have only one, definitely aim that at your chest. But if you have two, chest and torso. You can also put ice in one of your bottles. have one ice bottle and one regular bottle and alternate sips regular to ice bottle. I’ve basically created like a wind tunnel where I do my indoor training. I got two cheap fans on Amazon. They blow up a storm. I have two of them pointed at me and I use that ice trick and it really helps outdoors. You can unzip your jersey as you’re going up the climb, rezip it when you need have to get to the scent. You can be dumping cold bottles of water over your head. I also see a lot of people wearing a cap under their helmet on warm days to stop sweat going into their eyes. This can actually make things a lot lot worse on hot climbs. So, I’d remove that if you’re overheating 100%. The longer protocol to address this is to do a short heat acclamation block. So, you’re looking to ride indoors in warm conditions regularly for 7 to 10 days in a controlled heated environment. Now, you can think of this as like a zone one, zone 2 ride. you can focus on hydration and you’re going to crank up the heat. You can use something like a core sensor if you want to actually monitor the heat. I’ve loads of podcast if you search heat training on detailed heat training protocols. The important thing is with this to start gradual when you’re looking for heat acclamation. This isn’t a death march in the sauna that we’re after. We’re looking for graded exposure. Over time, you’ll expand plasma volume and improve your cooling response. The key is to respect recovery. Heat is stress. If your sleep and your mood start to dip from prolonged heat training exposure, pull back a little bit. Start using more fans. Start using more fluids. Indoor training is brilliant and it’s a beautiful way to get a stimulus. But there can be a lot of suffering attached to and we don’t need to glorify that suffering. One of the easiest ways to suffer is restricting that air flow. So please only do that in a controlled manner. Fitness isn’t built by overheating. It’s built by an appropriate load and consistent recovery. Okay. Before I jump into reason number three, I wanted to flag a really cool project that we’re kicking off. It’s called not done yet. And it’s aimed at anybody who’s over 30, who’s not ready to give up. Someone who still wants to scratch that itch to see how good they can be, how fast they can be, even with balancing family, work, and life. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to personally work with and mentor a small number of athletes for the coming season. I’m going to plan their training in detail, their nutrition, their race calendar, tactics, everything. a full pro experience. So, if you’re not done yet, pop me an email. I’m gonna leave my email down below, but it’s anthony romancecycling.com and tell me a small bit about why you think you’d be a good fit for this program. I’m going to review all the applications and I’ll get back to a handful of you guys and we’ll have a pretty amazing year. I’m going to trickle down a lot of what I learned in the podcast into this not done yet cohort. So, I’m really excited by that project. You know, I’m genuinely proud of my little man cave. my escape, my safe place. It’s not glamorous by any means. It’s crammed into the spare room in our apartment with bikes stacked in the corner, boxes everywhere, and the smell of chain lube is just kind of hanging in the air. But in that corner, that’s where the work gets done. That’s where I switch off from everything else, and I lock in on my training. And the centerpiece of it all, it’s the Wahoo Kicker Bike Pro. Honestly, it’s the ultimate man cave. The thing just feels alive under you. It climbs, it descends, it shifts all automatically. You can dial into your exact position to the millimeter, just like your outdoor bike. And with the new setup, everything’s smoother, quieter, and way more immersive. It’s that perfect mix of comfort and performance that makes indoor cycling feel like a privilege, not like a punishment. And look, I’m Irish. I’m sitting in Ireland recording this right now. I know what it’s like to wake up, look out the window, see wind, rain, and sideways hail, and think, do I really want to be out there today? And that’s where the kicker comes in. You can get a worldass session done right there in your safe little space, no matter what’s happening outside. If you want to build your own version of that space, a place to train hard, stay consistent, and escape for a little bit, check out Wahoo at wahooitness.com. They’ve got everything from the flagship Kicker Bike Pro to the Kicker Core 2, which gives you that same legendary ride feel at a killer price point. Wahoo! Building the better athlete in all of us. Reason number three is underdeveloped aerobic base or some coaches will call this cardiac drift or cardiac decoupling. So, what you’ll notice on an endurance ride of 90 minutes or more is the heart rate starts to float up relative to power as the ride goes on. So early in the ride, 200 watts might cost you about 135 beats to produce. Now 90 minutes into the ride, you’re still at 200 watts, but your heart rate’s drifted. Say it’s up to 147 beats and it’s climbing. So why this has happened? Your ability to keep stroke volume high and rely on fat oxidation at low intensities. It’s a trainable capacity. Without enough aerobic base, fuel use shifts, temperature and cardiovascular strain accumulate, and heart rate climbs to keep up with the demand. It’s not a moral failing. It’s a training signal that you have an underdeveloped aerobic base. The quick fix today is to just cap intensity early. Don’t spend the first half an hour yo-yoing above tempo, sprinting for traffic lights. Ease into endurance pace with a long, patient warm-up or swap one hard, highintensity day each week for a longer steady endurance ride of 90 to 180 minutes. Now, I’m talking truly steady, not group ride steady where we’re having surges all the time. And if the route tempts you to surge because there’s rollers on the route, you just need to be a bit more conscious with route selection and choose a flatter loop or a trainer ride to reduce that variability. Now, a longer protocol to fix this is to run a 6 to 8 week endurance progression. Start with 90 minutes steady once a week and then add 15 minutes each week until you’re living comfortably in that 2hour plus space. Track decoupling with your analysis tool. You’re comparing average power to average heart rate in halves. You want less than a 5% drift from the first half to the second half of a session. And when you hit that repeatedly, now you’ve earned the right to add in a little bit of tempo or a little bit of sweet spot later into the ride. Don’t chase speed in zone two. Terrain, wind, and ego make speed a really it’s it’s a liar. Speed’s a liar. Chase steadiness, chase breathing, chase control, and chase decoupling. They’re far better markers. Reason number four, stimulants and medications, especially caffeine and common cold remedies that you’ll find a lot of people taking them at this time of year. What you’ll notice on mornings when you take that extra coffee or if you have preworkout that heart rate sits 5 to 10 beats higher for the same power or if you’ve taken a decongestant like pseudoeadrin, which actually is on the band list, so be careful of that in competition and your suddenly your endurance ride starts to feel perceived effort more like a tempo ride. What’s actually going on here is that caffeine blocks adenosine receptors and nudges up sympathetic tone. That’s great for alertness and it can help performance, but there’s a dose that helps and there’s a dose that makes your heart rate noisy. Decongestance in certain medications also have that tendency to drive heart rate up. The quick fix for this is to test your caffeine ceiling. Like a simple rule of thumb is one to one and a half milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body mass taken 60 minutes before your ride. That’s if you’re looking to maximize performance without that constant need to top up. If you’re just riding easy, do experiment with a zero caffeine protocol before your session. Also, definitely avoid those decongestions before training if possible. Like if you’re unwell enough to need a decongestant to train, I’d consider skipping the session completely or scaling that session substantially back. Also a note to just be careful with energy drinks because a lot of energy drinks seem to stack caffeine with the energy drink and other stimulants and this can also bump up your heart rate quite a bit. The longer protocol is to track 10 rides. Now I know this is a little bit monotonous but stick with me. On each ride, note your caffeine dose and your timing. Then note your average heart rate at a standard endurance power plus your perceived exertion. Look for the dose and timing that gives you clarity without cranking heart rate 10 beats higher. The best dose is the one that improves performance without compromising sleep. Okay, speaking of sleep, because sleep is so important to this equation because training doesn’t equal getting better. Training plus adaptation equals improvements. And the number one way we get adaptation is through recovery and sleep. So caffeine is like a tax you pay tomorrow. Even if you fall asleep on time and it seems like you’re sleeping perfect, sleep quality can suffer. And sure enough, the next morning, your heart rate will sit a little bit higher. Your heart rate variability will be a little bit off. So don’t mistake those morning signals the next morning after you’ve over consumed caffeine for I need more fitness. They’re signals to scale back on your caffeine. Often you just need a caffeine plan and to structure it and observe it to see what the best dose and the best timing is for you. Every rider chases that feeling. The one where the bike just disappears. Where the pedals turn easy and the road hums beneath you. And for a few fleeting seconds, everything just clicks. No effort, no noise, just flow. That moment isn’t luck, it’s engineering. The kind that only comes from obsession. For over 20 years, Parley has refined the art of carbon. Every layer placed by hand. Every angle tuned by feel and data until response, balance, and speed exist in perfect harmony. You don’t notice a partly because it’s flashy. You notice it because it feels right. Because every input, every climb, every corner happens exactly how you imagined it would. Customer production, every frame goes through the same uncompromising process, traceable, tested, and finished by people who still believe craftsmanship matters. Parley doesn’t chase trends. They chase that moment every rider lives for when the bike and the body move as one. Parley cycles engineered for that feeling that keeps us coming back. Reason number five, stress, poor sleep, and residual fatigue. What you’ll notice is your resting mood is flat. Your motivation is low and from the first minutes of the ride, your heart rate just won’t settle. Zone 2 feels like work. And if you push through, the ride just never really clicks. Recovery seems to take longer than usual. What’s going on here is life stress and poor sleep elevate cortisol and sympathetic drive. Your foot is on the accelerator before you even start pedaling. Your heart rate is primed to be higher for any given workload when you’re in this type of environment. Combine that with residual fatigue from a previous block or a big weekend or other life stresses and your body’s simply not in a state to be efficient today. The quick fix in this is to change the plan, not the goal. Swap today’s intensity for an easy endurance spin. Extend the warm up. Use some nasal breathing techniques for the first 20 minutes to naturally cap effort and settle the system. And if heart rate is still stubborn, finish early with a win of well, I protected recovery today. The longer protocol for this, it’s non-negotiables that will protect your training economy. Like seven to nine hours of sleep isn’t a luxury. I’d shoot for eight in the middle ground of that every night if you can. Consistent bedtime routines as well. It needs to be part of the plan. Cut caffeine after midday is another super easy hack. Stack life stress with humility. Work presentation tomorrow. More intervals. Do them the day after. You don’t need to do intervals and a work presentation on the same day. Plan your week with a green, amber, and red readiness check. Green means you’re ready to go as planned. Amber means you’re going to reduce intensity. Red means you’re going to have to take a rest day. If your heart rate has been high and power is low for 3 to five consecutive days, consider a D lo week where you reduce volume by 30 to 50% and you strip out most of the intensity. It’s better protect the next 6 weeks than win one stubborn Tuesday or Wednesday whirls. Okay, I mentioned at the start that there was a bonus myth around a heart rate strap. I’m going to deal with that now and talk to you about that and then right at the end I want to just wrap this in a neat bow and give you some actionable tips going forward to apply some of this in your training. Heart rate straps do have a tendency to misread. A dry chest strap, it can read falsely high in the first few minutes of a session. If anyone’s using an optical wrist sensor, well, they’re a disaster. They misread when it’s cold. They misread when the strap is loose or when you’re bouncing on gravel or rough roads, a dying strap battery will turn a normal endurance ride into a fake tempo day. And before you look at that data and you start to catastrophize it or you start drawing inferences from the data points about fatigue or training levels, just run a 30-cond checklist. Wet the strap or use an electrode gel, tighten it properly, position it under the pectoral muscles near the sternum, clean the contacts if it’s salty or grimy, and change the battery if it’s been months. If you’re using an optical sensor, I know, don’t try a chest strap. They’re horrible. And especially indoors, I would recommend going through this protocol almost every time you’re using your heart rate strap. Don’t throw out data or your training plan over a fix that will literally cost you the price of a coin cell battery and a paper towel and a 30-cond routine. My word of caution on heart rate straps. I’ve seen so many misreading straps and people and athletes panicking that their trainer was being derailed and it was just a problem with the strap. Okay, before we close, I want to give you a simple mental model for interpreting heart rate data dayto-day. Ask three questions. First, is the environment different? Hotter room, less air flow, more layers, or a hillier route? If yes, expect higher heart rate for the same power. Second, is my internal state different? less sleep, more stress, extra caffeine, or the tail end of an illness? If yes, adjust the plan. Third, is the equipment behaving? Fresh strap battery, good contact, consistent placement. If no, fix that first and retest before you rewrite your entire training plan. If all three are dialed and heart rate is still high for a week or more, then it’s a genuine training signal, usually to build aerobic base or to take a short recovery period before we go on to the next block. If you want help operationalizing all this, do pop me an email. Like I mentioned, we’re running the notdone yet program. You can put me an email on anthony romanancecycling.com and become part of a small select cohort of athletes I’m going to personally work with to take the guesswork out to plan your training, your nutrition, to answer that niggling question of how good you really could be. Ro man, thank you for tuning in. Please take one second to subscribe to the channel. My goal is to get to 70% of viewers are subscribers to the channel. We’re only around 40% at the moment. So, do take a second to subscribe to the channel because it makes a huge difference and helps us attract bigger and bigger guests. Thanks for watching. Talk to