Lactate threshold or VO2 Max test?

Lactate threshold test! Make sure the protocol allows a moderate increase in watts/effort based on your strength and that the stages are long enough to allow you settle into the stage.  The Olympic Training Center has gone from 3 minutes stages to now, 5 minutes.  With this protocol it will be very difficult to reach your max, but once you've established your threshold, keep going till failure and depending on how motivated you are, you can come close.

Your thershold number is a lot more valuable to you than a VO2 test.

Agreed, LT test is the way to go.

 They upped it from 3min to 5mins?!?! oh man that's brutal, I was interning there and was a ginnie pig for the tester... 3mins was tough but 5mins will be brutal! haha

if you live near a university, see if they have an exercise science department.

I called Syracuse and they did both LT, VO2 Max and body fat % for $75 total.  Plus, you have PHD level knowledge at your finger tips.  

Sorry, have to disagree on this one.

LT tests are not necessarily better, nor worse.  What people often mistake is that a VO2max test only gives a relative capacity at a maximum HR, where in fact it gives much more.

A VO2max test will provide 1st and 2nd VT, which as long as the tech knows what they're doing (and if it's a "real" VO2max test, with use of gas exchange against norms), you'll get at a minimum the 2nd VT, which is very close to the LT.  In some ways, it's actually superior, due to LT having fluctuations over the course of long-duration activities.

Between the 1st VT, 2nd VT, and VO2max, you get 4 very good ranges from  to base corresponding HR ranges (recovery, endurance, VT, and max).

Once you have the 2nd VT [commonly referred to as simply the "VT"] and corresponding HR, you get threshold you're looking that can be retested at a later date.

As a bonus- it's not invasive.

stages aren't long enough for anything to stabilize and give you true measures for a given load. I agree that you can attempt to get these measures from a VO2 test, but changing the step duration will change the curve. Same goes for a lactated test...shorter steps can underestimate lactate values and longer steps can overestimate lactate values. I could give an athlete a test with a change in load every 30 seconds and still get a ventilation curve, but it wouldn't do a very good job of specifying an athlete's zones.

The athlete needs to be able to stabilize in each zone for the test to accurately determine an athlete's training zones. For example, an athlete's VT1 is at 200 watts, but that may happen 2-3 minutes into the 200 watt stage. If you are giving an athlete a VO2 test and jumping them through incremental watt stages too quickly this might not happen until 225-250 watts when their VT1 is actually 200 watts. 

Interesting post from your 2007/09 comparison.  I went through the cliff notes version, but it was good to see your comparison from those years, and get some of the other input of posters on the topic.  One part that did stick out was how so many seem to feel that LT is the be all and end all.

But again, LT and VT are no better or no worse than the other.  It's all a matter of the tech giving the test, the interpretation of the results, and the practical application.

Specific to your results- obviously you've gotten more efficient, and your direct comparison from 07/09 is the stereotypical "shift right" of the threshold curve.  You increased in capacity, you became more efficient, and hopefully this was reflected in a change in speed.

Now, although this is a different topic altogether, I gathered your coach used a CardioCoach analyzer?  You've got some big-gun-lungs, without a doubt, but those values are a little too off.  Especially with an increase in BW (which decreases your relative value), and the large error amounts from only looking at ambient air, as opposed to ambient and known values.

No flow meter + no O2, CO2, and N tanks + no tech calibration with syringe = mucked-up results.

But, all things considered, as long as you were able to get some field applications out of those values, they're good enough for gov't work, so bike like you stole it and run like your life depended on it, and try to save a little O2 for the rest of us at the races, "Hoover".

Sure they're long enough (3 min stages)- that's the beauty of having a criteria for reaching VO2max.  Since very often most don't hit their true max (and instead hit peak) anyways, the optimal duration for a VO2max test almost becomes a mute point, since quitting is much more appealling than trying to suffer through an increased stage without a rise in HR.

As long as you do breath-by-breath and don't 10 or 20sec sample the data points, you'll stabilize in that stage.  Monitor the VCO2/VO2 and V-slope curves, and you're golden.

Don't get me wrong, I do think an LT test has it's place, I just tend to get my boxers bunched up when people preach the LT dogma and forget the VT karma is as good.

Best approach in my opinion is to give them the true VO2max test once to see their potential, and then test at a later point (pick the correct LT criteria for the athlete, which is why there are so many), and use a proper stage duration submax assessment for both VT and LT.

Then, get them a field test, compare with the lab, and then have some fun with the training. Field retest periodically, get them in the lab again months later for a controlled comparison, and adjust as needed.

Bottom line, it's great info to have, and makes benchmarks to keep one motivated.

No argument there, since even a broken clock is right twice a day!

Personally, I still think you're spending too much time at an HR too close to your threshold.  Back off some and work on all the gears in the gear box.

Thanks for all the info about the VO2 test.

I had my first test last night, it lasted two hours and the on bike component was exactly as you described. We did some breathing exercises too. In two weeks, I go back for a 4 hour test. I'm doing this as it is all part of a Phd student's study and I get paid $100 too.

The tester also offered to repeat the test later in the year for free. Because of your information, I'll probably do it.

Thanks.

Is the study you're in comparing fluctuations at steady state efforts between pulmonary and lactate?  Just trying to figure out why it's as long as 4hr.

It's always good to be the test subject in a study, b/c you can sometimes get some really good feedback.

Plus, the $100 goes along way toward post-workout recovery (chocolate milk or Omegang's Rare Vos- take your pick)

I think the study is something like that. The grad student did give me a schedule as to what would be going on in the 4 hours. I think I'll be working at 90% of my max power, and he administers shocks to the back of my neck after I breath out at certain times. He said there would be a lot of 10 minute rests too.

Oh and it also involves tubes down my mouth into my stomach and esophagus. Sounds fun right?

I really appreciate your feedback. Thanks. If you are interested I can tell you more after the 17th (the day of my test).

So I got some numbers back.

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Your absolute VO2max was 2.98 L/min and your relative (based on body weight) VO2max was 52.7 ml/kg/min

Your peak power was 230 Watts and your maximum heart rate was 181bpm with your threshold occurring at a heart rate of 159bpm.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you need clarification on anything.

I think I need to email him to figure out how he calculated the threshold HR. Also it was a bit of a strange test, because I've seen higher than 181 HR when training, sometimes in the mid to high 180s, but in this test, my legs were way more fatigued than my lungs.