General Discussion Triathlon Talk » How Often do you do "Testing" Rss Feed  
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2014-09-03 10:37 PM


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Subject: How Often do you do "Testing"
How often throughout the season do you do "testing" time trials, such as a 1000m swim, 20/40km bike or 5/10km run to guage progress and figure out training zones?

Some coaches say to do it every 1-2 months, others say at the beginning of the season only.


2014-09-04 6:27 AM
in reply to: elliot.power

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2014-09-04 7:48 AM
in reply to: elliot.power

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Subject: RE: How Often do you do "Testing"

Really it's just as easy to take a bike or run leg of a sprint or oly to test power/hr/pace thresholds in well trained athletes and it's more fun.

2014-09-04 7:55 AM
in reply to: uhcoog

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2014-09-04 7:59 AM
in reply to: Fred D

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Subject: RE: How Often do you do "Testing"

Originally posted by Fred D

Originally posted by uhcoog

Really it's just as easy to take a bike or run leg of a sprint or oly to test power/hr/pace thresholds in well trained athletes and it's more fun.

Agree for part. ie; an Olympic bike effort can tell a lot for FTP.

What I never bought into was that FTP means much for ironman racing. I mean it's not 'useless', but not overly valuable to know your FTP for ironman training and racing.

IME, via your training sessions, you can determine what efforts you can sustain on the bike for 4-5 hours in aero position better than using a test that is 20-60' in length.

FTP is a good estimate of fitness and can be very valuable on the trainer in winter session. Just not so helpful for long course racing.

 

Agreed.  Testing can assist in assessing if training blocks provided the results you anticipated and how best to move forward, but playing with power levels in training sessions is a much better way to set up your race day efforts.

2014-09-04 12:17 PM
in reply to: uhcoog

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Subject: RE: How Often do you do "Testing"

Originally posted by uhcoog

Originally posted by Fred D

Originally posted by uhcoog

Really it's just as easy to take a bike or run leg of a sprint or oly to test power/hr/pace thresholds in well trained athletes and it's more fun.

Agree for part. ie; an Olympic bike effort can tell a lot for FTP.

What I never bought into was that FTP means much for ironman racing. I mean it's not 'useless', but not overly valuable to know your FTP for ironman training and racing.

IME, via your training sessions, you can determine what efforts you can sustain on the bike for 4-5 hours in aero position better than using a test that is 20-60' in length.

FTP is a good estimate of fitness and can be very valuable on the trainer in winter session. Just not so helpful for long course racing.

 

Agreed.  Testing can assist in assessing if training blocks provided the results you anticipated and how best to move forward, but playing with power levels in training sessions is a much better way to set up your race day efforts.

Yes, testing guides training. Training guides racing. Don't skip steps.

The swim and knowing I still have to run still seem to have too much of an effect on me to use Sprint, or especially Oly numbers.



2014-09-04 12:20 PM
in reply to: Fred D

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Subject: RE: How Often do you do "Testing"

Originally posted by Fred D

Honestly, almost never.

Training zones can be reasonably estimated by good training sessions.

*I* do not feel that in IM racing that measuring FTP is that useful or necessary.

I can not remember when I last did it myself.

I haven't done specific tests in quite awhile either. There are a few hard workouts I'll key in on to make such determinations though.

2014-09-04 4:01 PM
in reply to: brigby1


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Subject: RE: How Often do you do "Testing"
Ok great, I think I'll stick with doing it once a year

Appreciate the help.
2014-09-04 4:17 PM
in reply to: elliot.power

Subject: RE: How Often do you do "Testing"

Originally posted by elliot.power Ok great, I think I'll stick with doing it once a year Appreciate the help.

Agree with the others above.  Testing is not really necessary for long course racing, but feel free to do it if you want.  I know when I was new to the sport, I was excited to test because it would show the huge progress that I've made.  It was motivating and made me want to continue to train hard.  But now that I've been in this sport for 5 years, gains are much smaller and harder to come by.  Add to that I have a lot more experience and can tell through general training if my fitness is on track or not.  So the desire to test isn't really there anymore.  It would only confirm what I pretty much already know. 

For shorter course racing, or short individual events (5k run, 10 mile TT, etc), testing can be more valuable as you can really dial in your race pace/effort and get used to that type of suffering.

2014-09-05 8:55 AM
in reply to: Jason N

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Subject: RE: How Often do you do "Testing"

The experience of those saying "not really" is something to remember. Might still be worth doing a few times a year until a good sense can be developed from a few other workouts and training in general. Something to remember is that the tests are solid workouts and they can help noticeably with pacing and pushing oneself. A lot of Ironman training is getting in the volume, but for the harder work, you do want to be able to push appropriately even though more of this may be farther out from the event.

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