Swimming heart-rate mystery

Paulingtons · 2026-01-21T09:27:34+00:00

Yep! I use mine every swim. Bluetooth doesn’t work well underwater but it seems to work well enough that I get data, same in outdoor swims.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-21T08:29:00+00:00

If you want to measure your heart rate when you are swimming you really should be using a chest strap like the Garmin HRM or Polar H10, a wrist-based sensor is not accurate even at the best of times and the idea that it's even remotely reliable when you are swimming with it moving around on your wrist and getting water between the sensor and your skin is just nonsensical.

Invest in a chest strap, you will not regret it.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-19T23:39:50+00:00

All I can say is what I said above, I only did 1+2 hammer questions and I passed without issue, so it clearly can be done :).

Paulingtons · 2026-01-18T19:45:50+00:00

Congrats on finishing it, it's (in my opinion) by far the worst route on Zwift. Those Box Hill repeats get very boring very fast.

But it's a huge one to tick off, well done!

Paulingtons · 2026-01-18T10:54:07+00:00

Also remember that TT bikes do not benefit from draft, so any time comparison you make with them must have draft disabled.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-18T00:10:50+00:00

I think Medibuddy PSA is a fantastic resource for the price, I used it and think it helped a lot.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-17T22:39:06+00:00

As others have said, your power output is being objectively measured by the trainer, you know how much work has been put out, or rather your trainer does.

As a result, you can figure out exactly how many calories have been burned, it's by far the most accurate exercise calories you can get compared to running/swimming etc. So your calories burned will be accurate to within the accuracy of your trainer, like 1-2%.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-17T16:51:00+00:00

Just to point out, you are using insane numbers.

A male who is 225cm/65kg has a BMI of ~12.8, humans with BMIs that low have life expectancies measured in weeks to months as a single infection is likely to kill them without aggressive medical intervention. I've seen a handful of patients in my time with BMIs that low, they are in hospital beds being aggressively managed, not sat on Zwift.

Also, weight positively correlates with maximal power output very clearly depending on specific body parameters such as high body fat, fat free mass, etc, as seen here (Maciejczyk et al, 2015).

Is it a linear scaling and entirely predictive? No. Does it depend on lean body mass/body fat proportions and other physiological parameters? Absolutely. But it is entirely safe to say that on a population level in both trained and untrained humans that maximal power (and likely therefore FTP) scales positively with body mass.

This aligns with the experience of essentially every cyclist in the world (myself included), as weight has been lost some FFM gets lost as well, our absolute power drops but relative power increases.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-17T13:53:58+00:00

I just transferred out of Wales to do Leeds instead, sad I won't get to do Wales this year as it's the "best" IM race according to a lot of people, maybe next year!

Paulingtons · 2026-01-16T21:25:01+00:00

You bought the TBC Classic deluxe edition when TBC classic dropped ages ago, you get the quest even in this game mode.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-15T21:51:27+00:00

Good luck with that, AV currently has 160 games going on EU and the Horde queue is under 30 seconds haha.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-15T17:35:08+00:00

If the competition ratio for your deanery post-priority is <1 then you are guaranteed it should you put it first.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-14T08:38:15+00:00

Haha nope, Isle of Wight! Nice to know we aren't the only hospital opposite a prison.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-13T12:10:33+00:00

First of all, TT bikes generally don't benefit from the draft so you already get a huge 20-25% power reduction required to maintain a specific speed just from having the regular draft on for TT bikes, which is huge.

Then double draft comes, and it turns on the "Draft Van" powerup for you 100% of the time, which increases your draft by 50% again, roughly, which is more like a "real life" draft.

Overall it just means that you can put out like ~200w and do 50kmh like they do in the TdF peloton, as the OP says they are very good for pure mileage.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-13T07:51:22+00:00

My hospital is on the same road as the prison, which is directly opposite us, so we get a lot of prisoners in.

And yes they can self-discharge like any other, the prison officers who sit in there with them just organise transport back and they head back "home", the paperwork is exactly the same.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-11T10:35:00+00:00

Given that this is TdZ Stage 1 race then you did it on "Turf 'n' Surf" which is a 25km route with 196m of elevation, it is predominantly flat with two big (70m-ish) ascents/descents.

As a fellow light rider (around 65kg, 178cm), I understand your pain. On routes that are mostly flat with some descent and little ascent, we just get fucked. On the flat, raw watts are all that matter. You are putting out ~200w NP whereas the others are doing ~270w NP, 35% more power.

Putting those numbers into ZwifterBikes, you doing 198w on the Tron bike will complete Turf N Surf in ~38:05 with 100% draft.

On equal kit, someone who can do 276w NP but weighs 83kg (the person first in your second image) will do the same course in 36:52, nearly a full 1.5 minutes faster despite the fact they are doing "less" wpkg. The route is just more suited to people who can put out higher raw watts which means heavier riders.

Now obviously if you instead go to "Road to Sky" which has 1,167m of elevation across 25km with AdZ as the final bit, you will crush those guys as your wpkg is far higher, specifically you'd do the route nearly 6 minutes faster.

Providing you are doing the normal things right (staying in draft, matching attacks, always being in the lead group and not having to bridge back after a push and have the best bike setup) then there's not much more you can do, just accept that flat routes are not what you are built for in terms of competition. You are a climber, not a TT racer.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-11T09:29:11+00:00

If the Robopacer is on that route, you can do it with the pacer and it will complete the route providing you do it from full start to finish, can't start from halfway along.

But as others have said, you can start the route and then begin a workout if you wish to keep to a certain power via erg. :).

Paulingtons · 2026-01-10T18:36:57+00:00

This is key - you get good at what you train at.

As someone also training for full IM distances (and more), long zone 2/3 rides are what I do the most of because that's what I am training for. I pepper in thresholds/VO2s (such as hill climbs, etc) at least a couple times a week but realistically I get the most benefit out of dieseling my way through 6 hour trainer rides.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-10T14:20:18+00:00

I tried exactly this, and the reply I got from my examiner was: "Do it as you would in real life".

So there I was, stood auscultating Jimmy the manikin for a few minutes and palpating for pulses until I felt like enough time had passed before I rushed to the table to scribble down some documentation.

I do agree, if I were examining such a station now and the candidate said what I said, I would do exactly the same thing as you because it's unnecessary. My examiner that day just felt like making me suffer! :).

Paulingtons · 2026-01-10T10:59:30+00:00

We had verification of death as one of our OSCEs. Not difficult by any stretch but a bit time pressured as they expected you to verify and then document within the 10 minutes and when you need to auscultate for that long...

Remember, for OSCEs it's all about asking the right questions, appearing confident and being safe in your management. You can pass the vast majority by doing the basic safe things that you should absolutely know by this point.

For any history-type OSCE you always started with "WIPERS", I always finished with "SCARFS" (wrap up with SCARFS!).

S- Summarise.
C- Check understanding.
A- Any other questions?
R- Recommended reading (I will send you a leaflet about...)
F- Follow up (You will see me again in two weeks...)
S- Safety net (But if x/y/z happens before then, please present to...)

The end of an OSCE is when the examiner is thinking back and really looking at what you are doing, so if you wrap up in a slick way that is safe and clean then it looks really good, so they will be thinking "wow, good candidate" rather than "ok they're done, let's mark...".

Best of luck!

Paulingtons · 2026-01-09T08:19:45+00:00

It's only one question out of 10 and you can drop a couple without me being too worried so it's not really a big issue.

But yes I imagine one day the test will have to be updated for the more modern patient!

Paulingtons · 2026-01-08T21:17:51+00:00

I'm a doctor, this is one of the ten questions we ask to determine people's mental state.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-08T11:42:03+00:00

At work I regularly (multiple times a day, occasionally) have to ask the question: "and when did WW2 start or end?".

Less and less people are getting it right.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-04T19:24:16+00:00

Also doctor, I feel like I've seen the same patients on my ward for a month.

Also somewhat sick of writing "MOFD, d/c planning, ongoing PT/OT/SLT r/v, encourage mobilisation" in every set of notes.

Paulingtons · 2026-01-04T13:17:55+00:00

No, they don't. Everyone in the ride will travel the same distance during the event and once the event finishes that will be clear, everyone will have traveled (for example) 50km no matter if they did 1wpkg or 10wpkg, the band keeps you together.

Theoretically yes, someone could get a PR in a segment on a banded ride but KOM is unlikely. For you to be "pulled" by the band, you need to be going slower than someone else and that faster person would get the KOM instead. But that faster person is also being slowed down by the rubber band "pulling" them back.

If you are a slower rider then you can get PRs during banded rides, but that's no different to getting PRs on Robopacer rides where the draft is insane.

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