Sorry Jerry I still don't get it.

If lactate when measured correctly can be a good indicator of the aerobic system and also be an indicator of the strength of the anaerobic system why do I need it when I have power or pace which actually tells me the exact strength of both.

I understand the biology- but what was trying to ask is that you're still basing the physiological test off of energy production/uptake = adaptation. Mainly because I'm someone confused since it seems you're trying to use a specific measurement tool, but by your answer here and in other responses mix in the pulmonary and metabolic responses. Yes, there is overlap in their responses to exercise intensity, but when you talk about using a product design for lactate, and then say "By far the best long term strategy is building VO2 max," why is the test device and justification not measuring what the best strategy is?

This is why many have already stated b/f that the far superior approach is the practical application of a power meter. Or if a runner, speed/time.

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http://www.reathcon.com

If that is true, then you don't. You should explain how you know this by power and pace tests. We can then evaluate whether your claim is valid or not.


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Jerry Cosgrove

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

I am confused by your response. I am not sure what you are saying or asking.


Yes, the test is based on estimating energy production. A single test has nothing to do with uptake or adaptation. When one does a second test and sees differences, there could be adaptations and hopefully they are positive. But for a trained athlete the main adaptation is usually not in uptake. I assume by this you mean the cardio pulmonary system.

The adaptations are most likely in the muscles not the pulmonary system but there certainly are changes in this system over time. There is also the possibility that the changes are due to economy.

Here is a graphic of the model for an endurance performance:



So adaptations or changes of anything to the left of performance will affect performance. Also changes to Aerobic Capacity can be due to many things, one of which could be changes to the pulmonary system. Most discussions to changes to VO2 max focus on changes in the actual muscle..


If I gave this impression, I did not mean to. This is all about energy production in the muscles.


Building VO2 max is the best way for long term performance improvement. For short term improvement in performance for the race that is approaching, a change in the anaerobic capacity will affect the results. The test tries to assess whether the adaptations were due to changes in the aerobic system or the anaerobic system.

Both will affect performance and are adaptations but one is better for long term improvement.

I hope this helps but it seems like previous responses have not. You may want to look at the pages on our website about energy production.

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

This is the first of 3 modules on energy production. There are then 3 more more modules later on about the role the anaerobic system plays in the utilization of the aerobic system. Here is the first of these three modules

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


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Jerry Cosgrove

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

If I know sustainable power, that is excluding any fast start high power, and excluding any hard short sprint finish or hard last few minutes effort at the end of efforts of over 20 minutes duration, and I know power over shorter durations. I have all I need. I don't need to know lactate numbers.

I can easily work out the contribution that comes from sustainable power and the contribution from powers above that power.

I can easily track progress over different durations, no need for fancy software even.

When I know the powers or paces over certain durations I know exactly which durations to work on improve etc etc.

The point is the lactate numbers are interesting but irrelevant to the performance over the durations.

NB, I deliberately don't take the average power or pace over say 60 minutes, but the sustained power or pace excluding any fast start, hard efforts over the sustainable pace or power or any sprint or sustained hard effort over the latter part of the duration.

I then compare this to power over shorter durations.

I'm not interested in if the sustainable power is the same as whatever definition of threshold one chooses, or a chosen blood lactate level or whatever scientific or medical academic term one chooses to use because the sustainable pace or power - the actual performance is what matters.


I use the terms aerobic and anaerobic in a very ordinary non scientific loose sense. For my purposes a pace or power is sustainable or not, below the red line or above it or on the red line. This is what matters, not a lactate number that occurs at or near that pace or power.


Most would use the term FTP, but then I reckon most people's FTP is overestimated and probably includes a few minutes of over the red, at the start, perhaps the odd few seconds during the effort and includes a fast all out finish in an effort to boost the average power. In my opinion the hard over the red line effort power should be excluded. The true sustainable power is a little lower than the average power over e.g. a 20 or 30 minute test, more or less depending on how much more pace or power an individual can generate over the red, or anaerobically, or over FTP or whatever term you want to use.

This is how one rides in reality though so may as well measure actual performance since that's what matters.

Besides, recovery from those "over the red" exertions along the way is still a fully aerobic process (meaning you have to pay for them from aerobic capacity), and if you are able to go deep into the red for a mathematically significant duration at the end to lift your overall average by that much, it probably means you were not riding hard enough anyway, so it comes out in the wash.

In general I find average power from those sort of rides ends up underestimating what someone could have sustained had they paced better.

Yes I see that argument. Cycling over 60 minutes absolutely any over the red effort at the end would only increase the average marginally and could indicate not pushing hard enough.

But over shorter durations e,g, 20 minutes some athletes can contribute a hell of a lot over the red line. This is why you get some who's FTP might be only 90% of their maximum 20 minute power and others who's is 95% or even more. There is a difference between, threshold, red line or FTP and maximum power over 20 minutes.
I was merely pointing out that some people over estimate when they test over shorter durations.

I prefer to establish the red line pace or power for training purposes. I'm deliberately doing this because I'm wanting to establish where the switch is, where the anaerobic kicks in. I don't want the number to include a chunk of anaerobic contribution.

I was specifically talking about using power or pace to determine threshold for training purposes in answer to Jerry's comments. I'm also aware Andrew Coggan can identify FTP purely from power data. I'm not claiming what I do is better in any way, I don't know exactly where what I do differs, I'm only explaining what I do and how I establish a red line to base training upon.


Incidentally I even struggle to hold only 90% of my maximum 20 minute power for 60 minutes. Last time I only managed 88% of my 20 minute power. I have a suspicion many base their FTP on too short a test. I'm aware I'm at one extreme though. There are people who's power over a 10 mile TT is hardly any higher to their 25 mile TT power. That shows you how different individuals are. Some have a tiny aerobic contribution others way, way higher. It's important to establish where the individual is for training purposes.

If there only was a way to measure anaerobic capacity when performing. Gosh darn that would be a deal breaker.

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Hamish Ferguson: Cycling Coach

I was commenting on your comments about 60-min power, not 20-min power.

We already know there is a quite a deal of individual variability in the ratio of 60-min to 20-min power.

But then one can test more than one duration to help better nail longer term sustainable power if actually finding out longer term sustainable power is not your favourite gig.

As for establishing what pace to use in training, I suggest using a proportion of what you can actually do for a duration as the best guide to what you should do for such durations.

Don't think we are disagreeing on anything here. My comments were more aimed at those who have based FTP on e.g. a 20 minute test cycling test.

Certainly over a 60 minute test any over hard hard start or finish would be negligible in terms of the average, and as you say the poor pacing may well lower the average anyway. Although it isn't uncommon for even the best pacers to have one hell of a last few minutes in a 25 mile TT. Possibly not the best 25 mile TT riders though who probably have a power profile where their anaerobic contribution is small, compared to say a track cyclist doing an occasional 25 mile TT.

Ideally the longer the test and the more even the effort. But I personally like to get as close to what I call the red line as possible by eliminating the power generated by a fast start and fast finish because some athletes because in the context of finding threshold the red line the point at which if you go over it you have to slow down or whatever you choose to call it.

Many cyclists even TT riders have a very fast finish even when they were on the limit for the whole ride. A good example of that is when Boardman set his athletes hour record. Can we really argue that Boardman paced that effort badly because he was able to raise his pace over the last few laps? He rode on the red line on the limit, he even dropped off the pace at one time and knew it would all be down to a do or die effort over the last few laps.


Just my personal opinion, I'm not claiming others are doing things worse than the way I do them, just explaining what I do. I have found that the difference between training just below that red line and just above it is massive in term as of how it affects fatigue.

Here are the cumulative average speeds for Boardman's and Sosenka's hour record rides (standard bike):



We can see how Sosenka very gradually faded through the effort whereas Boardman's pacing was much more inconsistent. this is highlighted more so with the 5km average speed splits:



In any case, when you know the end is close the penalty for going a too hard is far far less than if you do so earlier, so it's to be expected that some will regulate their pacing in that manner.

Source: http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/sosenka.htm

Yes and Boardman's comments.

"Up to the half-hour point I was feeling pretty good then the lap times started to drop off, I was on the limit," said Boardman.

"I could not do anything about it but didn't panic and decided to save everything for an all-out sprint in the last three laps.

"They were the hardest laps of my life. I had no idea if I'd beaten the distance and I didn't care. I just wanted it to end."

He added: "I've never had so much pain after a race. I can only put it down to having to ride in a crouched position on the old-style handlebars.

"If I had known how hard it would be, I would never have attempted it. I now know how much pain Merckx felt. I was never convinced I wouldn't make it but I was never sure I would make it either.

"The last 15 minutes were terrible and I was trying to get a second wind. I found it very difficult to hold my position."

Very interesting graphs. Thanks for posting them. The increase in speed and at such high speeds certainly shows how Boardman really increased his wattage at the finish but how it only increased the average speed a little. Crucially it was the difference between failing to break the record or breaking it.

In terms of how many watts that finish increased the average - anyone able to work that out?

it seems you are doing a critical power or critical velocity test. This will theoretically give an indication of the anaerobic contribution for an individual during the efforts used in the testing.

This is sometimes correlated with the measure by Medbo which he called anaerobic capacity. This is not the same measure that Olbrecht calls anaerobic capacity. He uses one that is parallel to what is VO2 max. From his book:

The anaerobic capacity is the maximum amount of pyruvate that can be produced per second by the glycolysis. It is frequently called VLamax (in some literature also PLamax). Since the conversion from pyruvate into lactate and vice versa occurs very quickly, the ratio between the muscle concentrations of lactate and pyruvate is described as being 1/1. You may therefore find in literature on the subject the label "production of lactate" for what we refer to as "the production of pyruvate". You may further find that the units of the anaerobic capacity are expressed in "mmol of lactate per liter and per second" instead of "mmol of pyruvate per liter and per second". This may sound confusing but is in fact quite simple since they are counterparts.

The anaerobic capacity can change as the athlete goes through the training cycle. It is thought that each individual has an innate maximum anaerobic capacity that is genetically determined. However, some coaches and sports scientists have observed growth in this capacity after years of training.

Note: This term has many other meanings. The definition we provide is not common by many in the academic literature. The anaerobic capacity is also used to refer to the amount of anaerobic energy that is released during maximum activity as opposed to the highest possible rate of glycolytic energy release.

Here is Olbrecht's definition of aerobic capacity

Aerobic capacity is the maximum amount of oxygen one can consume per minute. It is also called VO2 max. Some sources in literature consider VO2 max as a parameter of power and not of capacity. With respect to its unit of measure (VO2 max is expressed per unit of time) it can indeed be seen as a parameter of power. According to its physiological meaning however, it refers to a capacity. We join in the last argumentation and define, in line with Hollmann and Hettinger (1990), VO2 max as a parameter of capacity.

The higher the aerobic capacity, the better the performance in competition "can" be and the faster the regeneration process after training and competition will start. The aerobic capacity is constantly changing as an athlete goes through the training cycle. It is however thought that each individual has an innate maximum aerobic capacity that is genetically determined.

The anaerobic capacity is a difficult parameter to measure. The way Olbrecht recommends is a maximal effort of short duration, usually longer than 30 second and shorter than 90 seconds. Anything longer gets into accumulation and removal issues as was probably the issue with the rower I mentioned who had over 7 liters of oxygen capacity. That test was around 6 minutes. Shorter tests than 30 second are highly influenced by the creatine phosphate system.

It is a far from perfect measure but can be used with other things to assess anaerobic capacity. Olbrecht has a very precise methodology for estimating anaerobic capacity but he only uses it on elite athletes since it is time consuming.

So it is possible to get an estimate of anaerobic capacity after a 30-45 second all out effort. I have seen differences between 4 and 18 mmol/l for triathletes in running. It is possible to get an estimate of the aerobic capacity with two 4-6 minutes efforts of which no motivation is necessary.

The important thing is to test using some systematic way and then compare that to progress over time.

It should be pointed out that Olbrecht has three separate areas of difference from most people here on this site (see comment above). Using lactate tests to assess capacity is just one of the three areas and I don't believe you have articulated an efficient way to get at the actual capacities affecting performance. I believe that various times to exhaustion tests (TTE) have some relevance since they are probably influenced by both capacities.

Good luck in your testing.

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Jerry Cosgrove

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

You mean maximal accumulated O2 deficit (MAOD).


Well right off the bat there's a semantic problem: a capacity is not a rate, and a rate is not a capacity.


Not really. I mean, sure, measuring MAOD is more time-consuming than, e.g., measuring VO2max, but it's not *that* complicated. (Now *this* approach, developed/tested by one of our MD/PhD student at UTMB, is complicated: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7759416.) However, you don't need to do any laboratory-based or even formal tests *at all* to obtain valid and reproducible estimates of the capacity to produce (liberate, actually) energy in a non-sustainable manner.


Yup, variations on the classic Wingate test, w/ all its attendant limitations.

I meant in a general sense. Clearly it isn't possible to fully understand what. e.g., all the arrows are supposed to mean w/o additional context.


Well, yes, the activity of glycolytic/glycogenolytic enzymes will influence the exercise intensity at which lactate begins to accumulate in muscle and blood. However, the relationship is inverse to what you are proposing (hence, undoubtedly, why your prior comments sent up jackmott's red flag).

While Richard thought we were being overhanded in our treatment of Jerry, others might miss the subtlety of this point. Although it sticks out like a sore thumb to those intimately familiar with the topic, it probably flies under the radar to the vast majority of those reading this thread. (Although, I may be overestimating the number of readers with that statement).

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Steve

http://www.PeaksCoachingGroup.com

From Medbo

Medbø, J. I., et al. (1988). "Anaerobic capacity determined by maximal accumulated 02 deficit." Journal of Applied Physiology 64(1): 50-60.

So far available methods have not allowed precise estimates of the anaerobic capacity. The present study was therefore carried out to show that the accumulated O2 deficit under appropriate exercise conditions seems to provide an accurate estimate of the anaerobic capacity

but as Olbrecht has said this is not what he means by anaerobic capacity. I don't have the Hollmann and Hettinger book which discusses these definitions. I would not understand it anyway since it was written in German.

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Jerry Cosgrove

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

I am not sure what you mean by inverse. We are proposing that the stronger the anaerobic system, the lower the effort level at which the threshold takes place. Here is a chart showing lactate threshold curves for a typical sprinter, middle distance runner and marathoner.



The measures of anaerobic capacity or strength of the glycolytic system decreases across these three types of athlete. As it decreases, the threshold moves to the right. So what are you saying? That this is not true or the opposite of what I said. Or did I express it incorrectly?

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Jerry Cosgrove

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

Right, exactly (anaerobic capacity is a rather generic term dating back longer than I can remember; it is MAOD that is specifically associated w/ Medbo).

Sorry, I was misinterpreting you. Specifically, a number of times you emphasized the importance of training the glycolytic/glycogenolytic pathway in endurance athletes (which, depending upon their event, is debatable), and indicated that doing so impacts lactate threshold. I took that to mean that you thought it was a direct relationship, when in fact it is an inverse one.

(BTW, note that I didn't say anything about actual performance above.)

Yes, I agree. I was responding to Richard who proposed what I believe is a critical power test as a measure of anaerobic capacity. Richard has read Olbrecht's book and was generally positive about it. The definition of anaerobic capacity I provided is taken from his book. It is not a generic term but something very specific he tries to measure precisely as best he can. Some of the ways he measures it are less precise than others but he believes it is essential to measure it.

It is a rate but so is aerobic capacity or VO2 max. From Wikipedia:

VO2 max (also maximal oxygen consumption, maximal oxygen uptake, peak oxygen uptake or maximal aerobic capacity) is the maximum rate of oxygen consumption as measured during incremental exercise, most typically on a motorized treadmill

VO2 max is expressed either as an absolute rate in (for example) litres of oxygen per minute (L/min) or as a relative rate in (for example) millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of body mass per minute (e.g., mL/(kg·min))

So my guess is that the model I presented above is novel in some aspects since it includes the definition of anaerobic capacity that Olbrecht uses which is not discussed too much in the English exercise physiology literature.

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Jerry Cosgrove

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

Another example of sloppy nomenclature...


Sorry, but terminology aside, I'm still not seeing it. (Never heard of MAP/MAC/MANAP/MANAC? Olbrecht's anaerobic "capacity" would equate to MANAP...in fact, it sounds like he uses essentially the same performance test to quantify it.)

Fine. All I have been offering is an alternative to be considered that is used in training world champions. Obviously, not the only way that people are using but a very successful one.

It takes some effort to read all the relevant information which many may not want to expend but it resonates with many coaches because it reflects a lot of what they see in their athletes. The rationale for it is available for those who want to consider it.


Olbrecht is only interested in the glycolytic system as the definition he uses is described above. So some maximal anaerobic tests may not be appropriate. He uses different ways to estimate anaerobic capacity depending on the preciseness needed, one of which is not described in any literature. It is based on Mader's metabolism model but his procedure to get at the capacities is proprietary (used in swimming, running and rowing but not used for cycling - that is in the works.)

This is all intended to encourage exploration by those interested. It has gotten a few here interested in the concept of anaerobic capacity and its effect on endurance performance. That itself is a breakthrough. They can now accept or reject the relevance but before few ever thought of it.

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Jerry Cosgrove

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

Possibly give the more serious symptoms of an over active thyroid.