It's been a very long time since I administered an Astrand test (>25 years) but when I did it was a submax test. You would ride at a measured amount resistance until your heart rate was steady. Then there was a formula for determining your VO2 max. The idea was that the lower your heart rate at a fixed amount of resistance, the higher your VO2 max.

It's been a while though. I've gone through the treadmill test, and it was way worse lol.

you're going to get kicked off the forum for not enjoying it ;-) sweet pain...

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I'm pretty sure this is how the Garmin app does it. I think it says it needs 20 or 30min without stopping or steady to do it, or something like that. One thing though is shouldn't the test take into account room temperature and humidity for the air density and your thermal efficiency? Like, your HR will be higher without a slammin good fan and cool room even if you measure the air density.

If it is submaximal, could you also game the system with a massive negative TSB score right before test day to crash your sub maximal HR? I mean, that can easily be worth 5 bpm.

I would think a maximal would mean you couldn't game the system.

The maximal test was more accurate as it was a measure of the oxygen uptake by your body. The submax was an approximation, and based on a graph which was taken from statistical averages IIRC. So it applies for the most part, to a certain % of people, under the right conditions.


I meant "worse" in a good way? :-P

You should ask on the Wattage Google Group

 

the grad student told me they start at 50 watts and up it 25 watts every minute. They do it in the same location for everyone so they just record their conditions in their publication.

LOL on gaming it - I want this grad student to get good data (he's a cool guy; runs a 2:22 marathon). I am just nervous I am going to get a number way under what I got from the treadmill one at age 19 and feel un-fit.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

25watts/min sounds like the protocol that Alex Simmons wrote about and used by British cycling. The only thing is it was 15 for women.

elite men 20/min, non elite men 25, women 15.

The problems with these protocols is
a) they all do their little twist on the protocol
b) they reverse engineer VO2 from watts (or pace) and ignore the athlete's actual economy.

 

even if i am hooked up to a breathing device?

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Ok, sorry, no. I didn't get that part !!

I didn't know that was even still around. I had a look and Bill Black is still doing all the heavy lifting, albeit with less frequency than before.

Not much going on there and without Bill there would be nothing.

I think they'd be really happy to help someone in that group or the cycling physiology group

The Vo2max-tests i've done recently (in research studies) have been a ramp test with 25 W increase every minute, until the Vo2 uptake flattens and start declining. This usually happens marginally before you would call it an all-out test.
HR was logged, but had absolutely no impact on when to stop.

      As a generalization, length of time for each ramp up in standard Vo2 Max testing would depend on if you are also testing lactate, perceived effort/heart rate/power, and Sm02. i.e. are you looking for MLSS..lactate steady state. If adding lactate in, many would recommend doing longer than 2 min, 25 watt increase. Something more like 5 min or the 5-1-5 ramp test. If just doing Vo2 thru a respiratory exchange mask (not the stab in the dark garmin watch prediction algorithm), then you can do shorter interval ramp ups of closer to 2 min. The nice thing about adding in Sm02 (most PhD students are doing that now as much more helpful info) is you can see the oxygen drop out within 30 seconds when approaching FTP, and can do shorter ramp ups...and is easier doing a Vo2 test that way...as not as fatiguing to the subject when in season.

So in reality it's not a simple answer...sort of like the long swim set question....depends on the subject and what they need to work on/test. If just want to roughly estimate Vo2 Max for yucks (wouldn't give enough info really though to determine training), keep it simple and do 25 watt ramp ups every 2 min. If you have an FTP of 4+ watts/kg on the bike (not many do in tri), then look at 40 watt ramp ups. And the important thing is, if you want to repeat it again let's say 3-4 months during the season to see how you responded, stick to the exact same parameters of ramp up watts and time.......as the ramp up time/wattage increase can change the results. Remember that we can change our Vo2 Max despite many saying you can't. Perhaps ask them if you can do 5-1-5 ramp up....as slowly that is becoming one standard when Sm02 added in.

On another note, Zwift FTP testing was 20 watts every 1 min for the "simple FTP test," the last I looked. (wondering if someone has done that FTP prediction test recently?) And the Norwegians surely ain't using the simple FTP test.


Bill

Using RER and/or SmO2 is definitely helpful when estimating critical power or FTP or MLSS. But find it hard to believe that you get good estimates of what is truly the VO2 max if using only one test for estimating both VO2 max and CP/FTP/MLSS. I am under the impression that if you want to find both you should first perform a "lactate"/MLSS test (with for example 5 min ramps, 50-25W jumps discretionary, stopped when more than about 4mmol or RER a bit over 1.0 or with SmO2) and then afterwards a VO2max test (without measuring lactate). The lactate test isn't that taxing when stopped early and with some easy pedaling in beetween does not impact the vo2-max testing. The two tests can be performed well within an hour if setup and execution is on point.
Measuring lactate at VO2-max power outputs is not of much use. Having long ramps above MLSS makes it really hard (impossible?) too reach VO2-max.

that's all interesting - this is for a nutrition study, so they don't need that detail.

My vo2 max, treadmill measure, was 60.5 ml.kg.min on March 26, 2007. If I'm still in that type of shape I should hit about 300 watts on the bike, right? I'm working backward from the graph below and I weight about 122 lbs

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-relationship-between-absolute-peak-power-output-PPO-and-absolute-VO-2max-A-and_fig1_51552099

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD