Wolf-Dieter_Wiggly_Z
(" Wiggly" on his Ride-the-World challenge (40.075 kms in 2020))
1
Would it be possible to do workouts with heartrate controlling the intensity of the trainer?
On my former indoor bike there was an option for it (which actually didn’t really work quite well…). I could imagine that with a Zwift setup it could be possible to for example doing a workout riding 30 minutes @ ~130 bpm HR. And the trainer is reacting to your own personal HR. If it’s too high lowering watts and if too low increasing. Of course same with different HR zones during one workout.
Not sure if it makes sense, just wondering if it wouldn’t be a feature option. Because… not every day you’re the same… the Watts remain being the same in an ordinary workout but the heartrate varys from day to day. A heartrate controlles workout maybe would fit better to your current shape.
The issues with such a platform are not unique to the older indoor bike you had. There is just quite a lot of lag time between the adjustments in resistance and the corresponding drop in HR. And, even worse, the lag is not the same. Both with increased fitness and fatigue, you see increasing lag in the responsiveness of HR.
To try to make an “erg mode” for HR would just be much too highly variable.
This is why we have the FTP bias arrows in workout mode that allow you to change the relative intensity of any workout quickly by 10% +/-
Much better for you to look at your own HR and/or RPE and make changes to the workout based on that than for us to try to do it for you based on HR, which also changes quite a lot day to day because of fatigue, hydration, etc. And which is much slower to respond to changes in load than power is.
//Jordan
Zwift Game Design
1 Like
Wolf-Dieter_Wiggly_Z
(" Wiggly" on his Ride-the-World challenge (40.075 kms in 2020))
3
Hey Jordan Rapp,
AIRhub makes a front wheel for riding that ADDS resistance outdoors. It’ll keep you under a certain speed, hold you to a certain power output, and you can even set it to keep you at a specific heart rate.
If Zwift could control smart trainers based on a heart rate then longer Zone 2 ERG rides would offer some variability compared to ERG mode at specific watts. Currently I do long ERG zone 2 rides and I feel disconnected from the game, watching with no control, but it keeps me in the correct zone without adjusting my effort so that’s what I do. Even though HR is slow to respond I think that’s the benefit of a HR based ERG ride. It would allow a rider to push a touch harder to catch a wheel and play a bit, but would still be gently adjusted back into the correct zones. ERG mode currently is strict exact numbers, so HR ERG would keep the workout focused while adding variability. It could be an adjustable window too. Within the window the rider is free to ride a bit high or low, but outside the HR zone the smart trainer would adjust resistance, adjusting more the further from the zone the rider strays. I want to follow wheels, but I also want to be pulled back when I’m following a wheel faster than I should be for training that day. Freedom and structure.