Monitoring and Training Prescription

INSCYD relates heart rate to external intensity such as cycling power, running speed or other sport-specific performance measures.

This relationship can then be used to express physiological training zones as heart-rate ranges.

Heart-rate-based prescription is particularly useful in sports or situations in which power or speed cannot be measured reliably and reproducibly during training - for example in cross-country skiing or canoeing - or when an athlete simply does not use a power meter or suitable GPS device.

Comparing the relationship between heart rate and workload by studying complete curves over time can be unnecessarily complex.

INSCYD therefore provides a simple benchmark: Physical Working Capacity at a heart rate of 150 bpm, or PWC150. It describes the power output, speed or corresponding workload the athlete can produce at 150 beats per minute.

If the athlete can produce more power or speed at the same heart rate after a period of training, PWC150 increases. This makes the metric useful for longitudinal monitoring without having to interpret the complete heart-rate-versus-intensity curve every time.