Pretty much what I said during this webinar from 8-10 y ago:

http://www.slideshare.net/...ratory-based-testing

No, just the opposite. It is most appropriate for healthy athletes. Injured or recently ill athletes may have some condition that would skew the lactate results. Which is why one wants to test only healthy athletes when they are rested. Otherwise the tiredness or physical condition will affect the results.

To understand the purpose of lactate testing think energy systems. A person's contractions during the day and during exercise or a competition are fueled by the aerobic and anaerobic systems (primarily the glycolytic system). The strength of these systems is what will determine an athletic performance along with some other factors, of which the main one is economy.

Lactate testing is a window into both energy systems. The greater the aerobic system the greater the performance which is why VO2 max is so important. The anaerobic system does not provide much energy during a long competition but it determines how much of the aerobic system an athlete can utilize during the event. The anaerobic system while not providing much energy, is a key driver of the threshold which is what you want to train in the right direction.

So look at lactate testing as a way of estimating the strength of these two systems. This is best done with a healthy person who is rested.

The distance test with its pace or power reading is just an effect of the strength of the energy systems and their interactions. So is the lactate test. But lactate is chemically involved in both systems so it is much closer to what is happening with each. It is possible to design a lab test for cycling that may get at anaerobic capacity but is very difficult for running or swimming.

Olbrecht wrote a long article for us on the triathlon. We were originally going to publish it in a book of other articles. This never came about so we took the article and broke it down into several sub-sections and put it up on our website. It also includes some information from other coaches or sports scientists.

http://www.lactate.com/triathlon/index.html

I suggest you read the at least up to the sections on energy systems and see if that answers your questions. I don't want to take up lots of pixels here with a personal conversation.


One of the advantages with lactate testing is that it does not require a maximal test for determining endurance performance. Just two sub maximal tests of 5-6 minutes will give one the same information as the distance test which has to be executed at maximal.

The anaerobic test does however require a maximal effort so it is motivation dependent. But it has the advantage of being short, less than a minute or sometimes only 30 seconds. In swimming, Olbrecht would sometimes enter his triathletes in a 100 m freestyle in order to get a maximal performance. The juices of a competition often get a max performance out of the athlete.

If I have time, this thread is taking more than I would like, I will answer any questions you have on my site. I have a questions page which I haven't done much with in the last couple years. But hopefully, this will help. Think energy systems and maximizing the aerobic system and fine tuning the anaerobic one.



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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

So, lets say a standard FTP test of 60 minutes yields a power of 300 and your LT test yields a power reading of 295 at LT. How exactly is that better than just having your FTP?

Checked out the Moxy page and it goes for $1200 so there is a price difference with the BSX if money is a factor.

First, you essentially have the same information. There is nothing magic about the FTP number. There is nothing magic about the LT number. However, both are indicative of how you will probably do during your next competition in that discipline if both were done when you were rested.

We recommend that you don't try to calculate the LT because it is just an estimate as is the FTP. Rather we recommend that you calculate the V4 for swimming and running or P4 for cycling. This test can be done with two efforts at about 6 minutes each. There is nothing magic about the V4/P4 either. They are markers of conditioning just as is the LT or FTP. You should not train at the V4 or LT or FTP. They are too stressful. I realize that many here disagree with this.

Some may do a more elaborate lactate test to include baseline as well as the effort levels where the curve is rising. First time out it may be necessary to do this because one does not know exactly where their curve will start increasing.

The V4/P4 also correlates with performance so as it moves so will your estimate of a performance in competition also change. But in addition to the V4/P4, we recommend an all out test to measure maximum lactate. This test is less precise than the aerobic test of the V4/P4 but will indicate the strength of the anaerobic capacity. Most triathletes will have a max lactate between 7-12 mmol/l of lactate. Results below this and above this usually indicate a weak anaerobic capacity or strong anaerobic capacity. Both of which will limit performance during a competition.

If one lowers the anaerobic capacity without any change in VO2 max, the threshold will move to the right. If one raises it, the threshold will move to the left. In the long run, the objective is to raise VO2 max or aerobic capacity and move the curve to the right. This is what will get you better. In the short run one can increase their performance by lowering their anaerobic capacity but not too much. This also move the curve to the right.

Here is a chart to indicate the range of V4 measures for runners:



It is a long term process of testing about 5-6 times a year.


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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

So, lets say a standard FTP test of 60 minutes yields a power of 300 and your LT test yields a power reading of 295 at LT. How exactly is that better than just having your FTP? (quote)


One example from Canova on the type of testing he is doing with his athletes, to answer your question FTP is FTP thats it. What Canova is doing in the example below is having targeted and specific tests all at the same speed through out the specific period, these are identified as "goal pace" or the pace (about) you want to hit as your goal, say at your peak race. He monitors internal load vs fixed parameters (in this case speed) and modifies training based on the outcome.

From Canova:

The training process represents a combined action of different stimuli, designed to build and modify the qualities of an individual. This is what happens for every individual. If we are talking about an athlete, the stimuli have the task to build a stronger specialist in specified events. This process starts from the first day of life and persists all through life. Every situation of life is able to develop conditional qualities; in a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way. Taking this into account, the habitat of the individual and the social and cultural education play a very important role in building a future champion.

When we speak about African runners we must think that, normally, the best athletes are able to start their official athletic careers from a level of 90% of their final performance because they are already well prepared, without official coaches, using at home the most important type of training for a distance runner: long runs (from 5 to 12-15 km), very fast.

Through this type of training the most talented runners are able to greatly improve their Anaerobic Threshold, building a special MAX LASS, that is very difficult to reach with Caucasian runners from western countries. This is due to a lack of power - endurance for the natural training done during the first 12 - 15 years of life.

MAX LASS (Maximum Lactate Steady State) is the capacity to work at a special level of Steady - State, very much higher than the conventional Threshold of 4 mmol. This is a specific quality for the top specialists of 3000 / 5000 / 10000m, and depends not only on the level of AnT (Anaerobic Threshold), but especially on the type of training that we use for building this quality.

Personally, during the last 6 years, I have chosen the ‘road’ to work on developing the STRENGTH ENDURANCE of the athlete, after working for 3 months developing the AnT, because I think that there is a very strong connection between MAX LASS and STRENGTH ENDURANCE.

It may be that my terms are different from the official scientific terms. I apologise for this problem that may be connected to the fact that English is not my first language but also with the fact that, normally, Physiologists speak about research undertaken with normal, average athletes and not with elite runners.

I shall try to explain my point of view.

In the middle and long distances, THE SPECIFITY IS A SPECIFITY OF EXTENSION. So, the philosophy of training for every event of this sector is TO EXTEND THE CAPACITY TO LAST AT A FIXED SPEED, specific for the performance that you want to build.

In this type of philosophy, EVERY EVENT IS AN EVENT OF SPEED (because always the winner is the athlete who is ‘FASTER’ at the end of the competition), but most of the training is TRAINING OF POWER - ENDURANCE (where ‘Power’ is the speed that every athlete is able to maintain for about ¾ of the distance, and ‘Endurance’ is the training to maintain, at the same speed, the full competition distance).

As ‘SPEED’ is strictly connected with ‘STRENGTH’, we must develop ‘Strength’ to provide a better biomechanical support.

As ‘ENDURANCE’ is strictly connected with ‘ENZYMATIC DEVELOPMENT’, we must develop ‘Aerobic Power and Aerobic Capacity’ to have a better enzymatic support.

And, during the specific period of training, we must have the goal to develop the ‘STRENGTH ENDURANCE’, using a ‘Strength’ like base of intensity during workouts of Endurance, and an ‘Endurance' like base of quantity during workouts of quality.

Speaking about Lactate, for example, we can see, using a test derived from the classic Faraggiana - Gigliotti test, that the same athlete can build his MAX LASS during a period of 5 months. This is the experience that I have had with 3 different athletes.

Saaeed Saif SHAHEEN (former Stephen Cherono),
World Champion and WORLD RECORD 3000s/c

Nicholas KEMBOI,
4th all time, 10000m (26:30.03)

James KWALIA,
2nd IN THE WORLD 2004, 3000m (7:28.28)

The Faraggiana-Gigliotti Test consists in running a distance of 1000m, 1200m, or 2000m at competition pace, taking blood to investigate the lactate level after every test run. The runs are repeated over the same distance 4-5 times, with very short recovery. Sometimes we finish the work with a last test at maximum speed over a shorter distance to understand the ‘Power’ of the ‘engine’.

We use this test normally once every 4-6 weeks, in order to control the improvement in SPECIFIC ENDURANCE.

The goal of this test is to identify the MAX LASS at the moment.

We will present data regarding the 3 athletes above, explaining their different tests.



NICHOLAS KEMBOI

Test: 5 x 2000m (27:00 pace - 5:24 + only last time, 1200m free in 3:01.6) [1:00 / 1:15]

5-07-2003 (Davos) 28-07-2003 (St. Moritz) 29-08-2003 (St. Moritz)

7.4 mmol 6.6 mmol 5.4 mmol
8.8 mmol + 18.92 % 7.4 mmol+ 12.12 % 7.4 mmol + 37.03 %
10.4 mmol + 18.18 % 9.6 mmol + 29.73 % 7.7 mmol + 4.05 %
12.8 mmol + 23.08 % 11.8 mmol + 22.92 % 8.4 mmol + 9.09 %
14.6 mmol + 14.06 % 14.0 mmol + 18.64 % 9.7mmol + 15.47 %
16.6 mmol+ 71.13 %

The 1st check was after a race of 5000m, with a final result of 13:42 and 5th position. The athlete was not well trained.

I chose to increase the volume of kilometres during each week, and the volume of some single runs too (up to 25 km). At the same time, seeing a lack of strength, I put in his programme a lot of short sprints uphill (60-80-100m) and some circuits, uphill, with sprint and technical exercises.

Nicholas carried out the 2nd check some days before the meeting at Heusden, where he ran 13:14 after pacing, finishing in 3rd position.

After that period, I put in his training programme some workouts for STRENGTH ENDURANCE and SPEED ENDURANCE without, of course, reducing training of LONG ENDURANCE.

On 15th of August, Nicholas ran in Zurich, finishing in 13:01.14 in 2nd place, 20cm behind Kibowen. After this, he focussed on specific preparation for the 10000m in Bruxelles, and the 3rd check was one week before this meeting.

It is also, in this example, possible to see an area of Steady State lasting about 16 minutes that is demonstration of a major improvement in Specific Endurance.

During the last test I wanted also to understand how much power Nicholas would still have after running for long time at a good race pace, and that’s the reason for the last 1200m to be ‘free’.

Nicholas ran the ‘free’ 1200m in 3:01.6, in laps of 63.6, 60.2, 57.8, and I knew that he was ready for a great competition.

In Bruxelles, one week later, Nicholas ran 26:30.03, with the last km. in 2:29 and the last 600m in 1:25.3.

"During the last test I wanted also to understand how much power Nicholas would still have after running for long time at a good race pace, and that’s the reason for the last 1200m to be ‘free’.

Nicholas ran the ‘free’ 1200m in 3:01.6, in laps of 63.6, 60.2, 57.8, and I knew that he was ready for a great competition.

In Bruxelles, one week later, Nicholas ran 26:30.03, with the last km. in 2:29 and the last 600m in 1:25.3."

I'm in no way criticising the coaching methods but I still feel that the above illustrates how what really matters is the pace or power shown in the tests, not the blood lactate numbers.

The chillingly razor sharp comment after the tests a week before the race was, "I knew he would be ready for a great competition."

It was the pace during those tests which caused such confidence, not blood lactate numbers.

 

We really don't know exactly what goes on inside the body. Until we do, and it won't happen in anyone alive today's lifetime, I think we should be vary wary of making assumptions that just one physiological measure should dictate how we train.

There is much talk about using blood lactate tests to see if someone is training too hard, but blood lactate is only one measure of one consequence of a pace or power output. You don't know if all the other measures are telling you the same thing, for all you know everything you can't or don't measure would tell you the opposite to what blood lactate is telling you.


It is also possible to work out the aerobic and anaerobic contribution from pace or power alone, so again you don't need to measure blood lactate.

I would say he might disagree, but if either one of us ever met him I suppose we could ask ;-)

In its simplest form (my understanding) of Canova's principles are that identifying event specific Maxlass at fixed goal pace parameters are to a certain extent what shapes his protocol, the example above is but one of likely a few dozen that you could find out there, IIRC it was from one of his lectures that he did for the IAAF. It's what dictates the % of volume and intensity as an athlete goes from "fundamental" to "special" to "Specific" periods (his terminology). In this regard, at least for him (my understanding) it is the Maxlass, or locating a pace by which steady state BL (again event specific) drifts by around 10%.

People were asking for "evidence" as far as I can see there are some pretty reasonable principles behind this. IE likely one of the best records of any coach regardless of sport, over the past 30 years…. There are too many world records, Oly games medals, WC medals at events from the 800 to the 100km to count. He has been doing BL testing for decades and likely has his own data on several hundred runners.

Having said that it is just another point of view,

Maurice

Too stressful for what?

Not really aerobic vs. anaerobic, but:

http://alex-cycle.blogspot.co.uk/...-peabodys-wabac.html

Using a power meter to estimate anaerobic contribution.

Have I misinterpreted the above article?

No, you haven't. That is another way of divvying things up, which at least on paper should reflect the aerobic and anaerobic contributions, just as you wrote. Your post brought to mind the somewhat-related figure above, though, which is partially why I posted it (it was also handy).

Now if you want to think about interindividual differences:

https://www.facebook.com/...osts/869187656436867

Too stressful for proper regeneration of aerobic capacity.

These types of workouts can break down too much because they can be maintained for long periods of time. Because of this, the aerobic system may not regenerate to previous levels. So it is possible to actually regress. The better the athlete the more they are in danger of over training. For athletes with a threshold at a lower percentage of VO2 max, it is less dangerous.

Every workout engages both the aerobic and anaerobic systems. The more intense the workout the more the aerobic system is engaged and the greater the likelihood of breaking down too much.

See our super compensation page for what happens after a workout. These graphics are from Jan Olbrecht's book.

http://www.lactate.com/supercompensation/

High intensity workouts are gold but too much can be counter productive.

From the introduction to Olbrecht's book by Ernie Maglischo

http://www.lactate.com/sciwin_intro.html


This is contrary to what a lot of people believe here who are often looking for "sweet spots" or recommending their favorite workout. But this concept is not Olbrecht's alone and discussions on this site on polarized training have espoused a similar approach to training.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/..._latest_reply;so=ASC

Warning this thread is extremely long

Whatever one decides to do;

measure or test,
adjust training based on the results
and then do the training.

Feedback is essential for success. And measurement is essential for good feedback

Repeat every 6-8 weeks. Over time the athlete, if disciplined will find what works best for themselves. Not everybody adapts the same and one of the hottest areas of exercise physiology research is what happens in the cells as a result of different training stimuli. Not everyone expresses the same genes when given the same type of workout. Some adapt very quickly to training, for some it takes more time and for a small percentage they adapt hardly at all.

For a discussion of training philosophy and an example of training too hard see our discussion on "steering."

http://www.lactate.com/steering.html

See the swimming example on the right side of the page


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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

"Too stressful for proper regeneration of aerobic capacity.

These types of workouts can break down too much because they can be maintained for long periods of time. Because of this, the aerobic system may not regenerate to previous levels. So it is possible to actually regress. The better the athlete the more they are in danger of over training. For athletes with a threshold at a lower percentage of VO2 max, it is less dangerous. "

Jerry, I can't speak for swimming but certainly I agree with this for running and rowing.

But I'm not sure about cycling. Many cyclists do almost nothing but long intervals close to FTP. Some seem to thrive on them. Might cycling be a different case due to the limited plane of movement and muscles used with the weight being supported?

I know I can easily do 2 hard 20 minute efforts cycling and string then together for 2 or 3 days ( invariably I struggle on the 3rd consecutive day), but I'm unable to manage 2 hard 20 min rowing efforts or 2 hard 20 minute runs as easily, and I certainly can't do them again for 48 hours. Might recovery from hard cycling efforts be quicker and any breaking down more limited or would you say the same applies to cycling?

What makes 4mmol of blood lactate such an important number?

Might be so which is why experimentation is essential for everyone. Olbrecht has the least experience with cycling though in the last year he has been working with some high level coaches trying to implement his testing and monitoring ideas with them.

He has used his ideas on swimming since the late 80's and on running since the early 90's. About 2000 he did the research on rowing and has been working with the Dutch rowing teams for the last 12-13 years. What I mean by this is that he has developed a model of metabolism for each of these sports that with the right inputs will provide both aerobic and anaerobic capacity as an output. From this he can recommend specific training approaches to optimize the metabolism for the particular athlete. He then watches each athlete over time to see how they adapt.

I had dinner with him in October and asked him about cycling. He said he was still working on it but was incredibly busy. He uses traditional lactate tests with triathletes on cycling which includes the all out tests for estimates of the anaerobic system. It is not as precise as his other metabolic models but he still gets at what works and doesn't work with these athletes.

He thinks cycling is the least important sport for training in the triathlon, not because it is not a major contributor to success but because it is harder to make major mistakes with the training. He says more mistakes are made with running and to a lesser extent swimming. With two winners at Kona and other top triathletes, he has had good success with this more limited model of cycling.

The comprehensive model of metabolism for cycling may be on his back burner for the time being since he has just added many Australian swimmers to his work load and is working with several national teams. Plus he has a day job.


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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

Nothing. It is however, a very useful number. It nearly always on the upsweep of the lactate curve and thus easy to measure. Trying to measure lactate threshold can be an adventure. So why not take something that highly correlates with it and with performance and use this as a benchmark. It can be used to set training paces just as many use the threshold to do so. You do not want to train at it though. It would be very stressful if too much was done at this level.

It arose when Alois Mader noticed the runners he worked with in East Germany all appeared to have maximum sustained running speeds at around 4 mmol/l. Mader escaped from East Germany and went to the Sports School at Cologne. There he popularized this measure but in no way said it was the threshold. The threshold concept at the time was murky at best and just starting to be understood.

German universities got jealous at Mader's fame/notoriety and took shots at the 4 mmol/l measure so the meme arose that is was not a valid measure.

We ran into some Cuban sports scientists who use a different measure for their runners. They used 3 mmol/l because runners tend to have lower threshold lactate numbers than other sports.

It is a convenient number, not magical in any way. It is often very close to the threshold but threshold lactate numbers are mostly between 2.5 and 6 mmol/l.

Hope this helps.


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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

Thanks.

I noticed in the interview with the Brownlee's coach posted on here recently that he said Alistair Brownlee was doing 50% of his training hours on the bike and the rest divided between swimming and running.

Try it and see how it works. Measure, adjust, train.

Isn't he a good runner and swimmer? So maybe the bike is were he needs more attention. Is drafting still allowed in Olympic length events? The last time I saw one was a few years ago and they all seemed to get off the bike together and the winner was the best runner. It is not something I follow.


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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

He is a very good runner, 3rd or 4th fastest 10k time of the year in UK, and that might have been after the swim and bike?

But I reckon he is probably training as many hours a day as is possible. There is only so much running the body will tale so cycling twice as many hours as running isn't surprising, probably what he is doing is the maximum he can do and the split of hours is dictated by recovery.

Perhaps someone who knows more about him can comment?

Recovery is not so much of an issue with cyclists compared to runners and swimmers. This may be why so many are prepared to do so much of their training at or near threshold.

So considering this thread was started about the BSX, does the method this device figures your levels work? Is it of any real value knowing if your levels/zones change more often?

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"Base training is bull shit" - desertdude

I just want something that looks at power, heart rate and lactate threshold and anything else we can measure and says regardless of how many days I've taken off, or what I ate, or how dehydrated i am to either speed up, or slow down.

I don't want to rely on feeling, or if I'm going to blow up because im going too hard because im fooled by the extra espresso shot I had, or because I'm feeling lazy, sleepy, or awesome.

Seems like bunk to me. There is no reasonable explanation why there are separate running/cycling versions (PM pairing aside). Lactate levels are lactate levels. If it works properly and measures lactate levels it doesn't matter if you are running, cycling or having sex.

As to your second question, it doesn't seem like it. If you know your FTP you have your training baseline. LT might show a higher or lower aerobic contribution to your FTP but at the end of the day it's just another number. No magic number that will suddenly make your training much more effective.

Seeing as though [HLA] is not directly measured, I'm willing to bet the algorithm is different between sports. Many factors go into the different pricing, but multisport is obviously most expensive because it has both.

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I talk a lot - Give it a listen: http://www.fasttalklabs.com/category/fast-talk
I also give Training Advice via http://www.ForeverEndurance.com

The above poster has eschewed traditional employment and is currently undertaking the ill-conceived task of launching his own hardgoods company. Statements are not made on behalf of nor reflective of anything in any manner... unless they're good, then they count.
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