LT Test results

LOL!!! HA HA! Its freaking hard!

By the way, Tony got injured on his Sunday ride. Just letting you know. He is in the hospital, concussion, broken arm and shoulder.

Yeah...I got the e-mail. Seizures at the scene...scary.

Rookie

Lol...I knew you'd like that...

You're probably at 205 when you get up at night to go to the bathroom .

Jim, have you ever done a field test, like what Mike Ricci suggests, for LT?  If so, how does that compare to this recent test?  Maybe I don't understand LT very well, but that seems rather low.

I haven't done a field test for LT, but when taken in context, it makes perfect sense. SInce I thought my max HR was so much lower, my training has always been done at a very low intensity relative to max. Because of that, my LT is compensated low based on all of the low intensity training. Good news is it shouldn't take a whole lot of faster training to bring it more inline with my VO2 max.

Chippy...his HR is on the high side...you know that right You're the one with the highest HR I've ever seen!

I bet you looked great in the mask. Where did you have the testing done?

"So now my future holds lots of speed work and longer runs above LT."

The runs above LT will increase lactate tolerance and VO2 max. In your situation, I would recommend (at the right tome of year which likely isn't October) long reps (20 min building to 40) of low zone 4 training - 5 to 8 bpm below LT.

Lab testing is very useful to enable training according to your unique physiology. You are likely a perfect example of an athlete who could sustain a higher HR for a field test, but will still train more effectively at or slightly below, LT.

Ken

Yeah the mask is awesome (my nose still hurts from it). I had it done at Athletic Training Serivces in Atlanta.
So you said longer runs at 5-8 beats below LT. My long runs are currently done at what it turns out is my LT (2hrs). I can right now sustain higher than LT (150ish for an hour or more...not too pleasant, thgouh). Building lactate tolerance is, I think, exactly what I need.

But...that's part of my charm, right?

What I think you're really after is the ability to run faster without lactate accumulating. If LT is that easy for you, forget the minus 5-8 and run right at LT, but I woudn't go above it. I'd also slow down the long runs to AeT, which will seem incredibly slow.

Ken

Maybe someone else can chime in here, but this makes no sense based on what I thought I'd learned so far (maybe I'm missing something).  I have been under the impression that your LTHR should be roughly what you could hold in an hour TT.  If you are doing long runs (presumably not at race pace) of 2hrs, it would seem very unlikely that you are at your LTHR for this.  The 150ish level (though I'd bet a little higher than this) you can hold for an hour would seem to correlate better with this.

Thanks, Ken, for your input. What I was told by Tony at ATS who did my testing (he's a USAT level 1 coach) was that since I have tons of base training under my belt (like 10 years of tri-specific), I should be really concentrating on faster stuff. He suggested periodizing with three weeks of an interval session and a long intense session (above LT) for both cycling and running per week, along with one week of less intense, longer stuff.

LTHR is generally about race pace for an effort of about 75 minutes. For an hour race, a well conditioned athlete (of any ability level) can hold slightly faster than LT an an intensity where lactate accumulates slowly (zone 5a).

Ken

I understand LTHR to be this: it's the point at which, above it  you're body can't clear lactate as fast as you're producing it. Therefore, if you're at or below your LTHR, you should theoretically be able to go all day...

Yeah, I know the 60min is an estimate and your 75min sounds like about what I've heard before (or that you should shave a few bps off of shorter tests), but it still seems odd that he could run a 2hr training run at LT.  And if he has been running there already, wouldn't that have helped to boost his LT?

Everytime I think I finally understand this stuff, turns out I don't.

How did they predict your maximum heart rate? Generally, the maximum heart rate that you achieve in a VO2 max test is considered your max heart rate. Was this a run VO2 max test or a bike VO2 max test? If it was a run test and you topped out at 184 bpm, either they terminated your test prematurely or your max HR is not really 205. This was not a sub-maximal test was it? Something fishy here.

Mike P.

I agree with this "definition" of LTHR also. 

I am able to run right up against LTHR for the half marathon portion of a 1/2 IM, but again, this is with significant base training (like you) and many on this site may not have the volume of base training completed to sustain this for the "theoretical" all day effort.

It was a submaximal test . Predicted max HR I'm guessing is based on an alogorithim in the software that runs the instrument.

If it was a submaximal test then the accuracy of all of the numbers they gave you is based on an "estimate" of your maximum heart rate. Why do a sumbaximal test? This is usually only done in those with heart problems, when a maximal test is too risky. Did they terminate the test at 184 BPM? Seems like an odd protocol.

Generally the only way to get a good VO2 max measure is to take it all of the way to max HR or exhaustion. Submaximal tests are OK if what you are looking for is an estimate of cardiorespiratory function in a low risk test. It does not provide the percision that an athlete needs to accurately establish training zones though. However, if they did some lactate testing and took you beyond your LT, there is some value in that.

Mike

This is all good info for me to ask good questions when I can (unfortunately, Tony, who performed the test crashed his bike Sunday and is currently hospitalized, so it'll be a while before I can ask.

The test was performed for the purpose of determing LT and VO₂ max, max HR wasn't the goal of the test (thus the extrapolation). The test was terminated because my sustained VO₂ had plateaued. Talking to Tony afterwards, he discussed how difficult it is to reach maxHR, and few people ever see their actual max HR. According to him, it takes repeated efforts like the test I did to place enough stress on the body to coax HR to true max. For instance, if I had a gun to my head, I could have gone longer and faster on Saturday.

Also...just for information, the apparatus used for testing was a "Cardo Coach."

I used to think it was easy to get maxHR. One month after I started running (3/05), I got my maxHR after a 1/4 mi sprint after my normal 8 min jog/ 2min walk 30 min routine. I've re-done the test over the next 3 months about 5 or 6 times and have always been within 1 bpm for the max test. Recently, I've tried to reproduce my maxHR and could not get within 5 bpm. Well, I mean it did not want to put myself through it anymore and the actual maxHR did not seem important enought at the time. I'm fairly certain that this is due to the fact that I'm more fit now and cannot nearly as easily get to my maxHR anymore.

I'm now a fan of basing training around LT instead of maxHR.

You finished with ~5 minutes at 9mph with a 5.5% grade and that was still a sub-maximal test?  That's a 6:30 mile UP HILL at the end of your test.  How long was the test much more would you have had to go to max out?

As soon as he's able to answer, I'm going to ask Tony that. It does seem a little strange that at that effort, my HR was 19 beats below my predicted max.