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Why is most of my cycle ride in Heart rate zone 5

Hi, I've had my vivoactive 3 for a long time now, last year and this year, I notice that whenever I go for bike rides, most of it shows as zone 5. Is this a fitness thing or a device issue?

I'm a 43 year old male, just under 14 stone, 6'3", my Average Resting Heart rate gets recorded at ~60bpm.

But when I go for a decent Bike Ride it's like this. This was a ride yesterday of 15 miles over an hour, no crazy climbing.

What I've never been able to work out is whether I am that unfit (it's possible) or whether it's a device/garmin thing.

Z5 > 161

Z4 = 143 - 160

The ride before was shorter, 9 miles, but similar effect.

0 hhasert over 4 years ago

Normally your peak is at 220 - age so 177 in your case. The device calculates your zones based on that, you can override it by setting your own zones (in connect). You can also check there what it sets when you use the default, based on mine I expect 90% of 177 =159 to be the start of your zone 5.

0 David C over 4 years ago in reply to hhasert

Mine are defaulted to this, I have the cycling zones turned on too.

0 hhasert over 4 years ago in reply to David C

Your average is 157, so I assume most of it is above that and hence the zone 5 minutes. It is hard to see the actual heartrate from the graph, You can change the start of zone 5 if you want of course, or cycle slower to stay below 157 ;-) I assume the heartrate is correct, but I am buying a chest strap since I do not fully trust the way the watch measures.

I am a bit older (so my zones are even less broad) and I reach my zone 5 doing crosstraining, heartrate 92% of max on full resistance, this is also what the machine tells me, so I trust it. Mostly the watch is too low due to not seeing enough blood flow with its sensor, esp at the start of the excercise. So, honestly, I think zone 4/5 is your normal heartrate zone for excercise, if the condition improves, you probably do more and it will again be on that zone. The start of my excercise is in zone 3/4 (resistance level 10 of 16) and it moves to zone 5 at level 14 and stays there when it changes to 16. To be complete, I do 260 Cal in 15 minutes according to machine and watch.

You can find several articles on it, for instance https://www.verywellfit.com/heart-zone-training-3432619#:~:text=The%20fitness%20heart%20rate%20zone,to%20speak%20in%20short%20sentences.

Which actually tells me I should fo max resistance for a short period only which is what I do. I hope some other bicyclist will answer you, since I cannot really compare, hope you get some indication from my data.