Steve Irwin wrote:
Andrew Coggan wrote:
If you go by Ed Coyle's criteria (i.e., a 1 mmol/L increase in venous blood lactate above exercise baseline, measured during a discontinuous protocol using 10 min stages), however, the FTP is typically about 5-10% higher (you can work out an exact conversion from his 1991 MSSE paper).
So how does FTP relate to the anaerobic threshold, which this paper found to be associated with a TTE of 60 minutes?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2242751 On average, FTP, "anaerobic" (i.e., ventilatory) threshold, MLSS, IAT, the iEMG threshold, the NIRS breakpoint, etc., etc., etc., all correspond to (essentially) the same exercise intensity. In fact, FTP is a blanket concept that explicitly recognizes this fact.
However, whether you see exact correspondence in any given individual, or even in a study of a small number of subjects, will depend
in part upon both the exact methods used as well as random variability.
The above is so well-established by the existing literature that additional studies simply comparing the various "thresholds" are, IMO, a waste of time. To further advance the field, investigators should be focusing on
why any small discrepancies might exist, i.e., are they
entirely due to random factors, or are their some underlying, cause-and-effect physiological relationships?
Note that some inroads into such questions have already been made, e.g., two decades ago it had already been established that interval training tends to have a bigger effect on VT than LT, whereas the opposite is true with steady-state endurance training.
Unfortunately, many younger scientists seem to be unaware of the numerous previous studies in this area, which really developed starting in the late 1970s. As a result, they spin their wheels repeating experiments that have already been performed, or designing studies the results of which are entirely predictable.
Note that the final comment also applies to this study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29203319 That is, it is already well-established that the range of test durations used as well as the formula chosen has a significant impact on the calculated CP (and W'). Thus, while it is handy to have all of the comparisons in one place, and the paper may be publishable for that fact alone, at the end of the day nothing new has really been learned as a result of the authors' (and subjects') efforts. Their time and energy would have been better spent pursuing a more important/novel/unanaswered question.