Raising the floor (LT1, tempo)

[danpyrs]

Hi Steve, thanks for this much appreciated.

I did the test twice thinking that the first one was wrong because my power seemed much lower than my power outside. Anyway both came out very similar so I guess my Heart rate is maybe higher inside or the ramp in the test inflates HR, or my HR is just higher, I don’t know.

Thought my max heart rate was 205 so my 1st test went:

Level - watts - HR - Breaths
100bpm - 48w - 103bpm 12
120bpm - 76w - 119bpm 12
130bpm - 103w - 130bpm 12
140bpm - 128w - 140bpm - 14
150bpm - 151w - 149bpm - 16
160bpm - 186 - 159 bpm - 16
170bpm - 215w - 169bpm - 18
180bpm - 249w - 181bpm - 36
190bpm - 272w - 192bpm - 38
200bpm - 299w - 201 bpm - forgot to count!!
30s - 208bpm (just to see where my Max Hr was)

Using max HR 208 from day before (only difference in test is I did this an hour earlier in the morning and I warmed up for 5 minutes):

Level - watts - HR - Breaths
105bpm - 38w - 104bpm 12
125.5bpm - 98w - 123bpm 12
136bpm - 125w - 136bpm 12
146bpm - 151w - 145bpm - 16
157bpm - 183w - 156bpm - 16
167bpm - 208w - 166 bpm - 18
178bpm - 239w - 177bpm - 18
188bpm - 269w - 188bpm - 36
199bpm - 298w - 199bpm - 38 (thought about this today this stage felt more uncontrolled in terms of breathing compared to other steps, still quite controlled though)
Stopped today before going to max

A few things: This is the first time I did an bike ride on my indoor trainer normally just cycle outside. And there were a few differences:

I know from sub max testing what my Heart normally is outside from doing tests in the warm-up and I’m not sure the match up with the above:

10minutes at 210watts - 159bpm (max 163bpm) cadence 91rpm.
x2 30 minutes: 1st 30minutes 235w (167bpm). 2nd 30minutes 229w (168bpm) - (max heart rate were 172 and 173bpm)

20 minute FTP test - 296w (187bpm) (max heart rate 197bpm).

Max heart rate seen outside = 205bpm

Hope this helps, I’ve already sent yesterday’s fit file. I’ll send today now. Don’t know which one is best to use.

Any insights from others would be great, thanks.

Thanks again
Dan

[damonti]

Hello everyone! I have just decided to join this community after reading for a while this fascinating thread. I would not say I am an “athlete” but more a recreational rider an enthusiast about training analysis. I am 52 and training not very hard (4-5h week) for about a year and a half.

I have performed Steve´s Step Test by heart rate and this is my result:

Looks like my endurance should be about 125-130 bpm and my tempo … maybe 140 bpm? Any feedback is welcome!

[steveneal]

do you mind sending me the fit file ?

did you average the entire interval?

[steveneal]

Hello @danpyrs

This method works for a surprising number of people…but doesn’t seem to work for you at finding aerobic threshold.

When I include your breathing (which if I am calculating correctly, your number of breaths x 4 for breaths per minute???

We do get a good Second Threshold indicator.

So…here is your graph, and can see that there is a power to heart rate ratio increase with the respiration increase, but there aren’t any noticeable changes at aerobic threshold.

If you can explain your breath information (the numbers I used were from you email, but I see in your post they are different) that will also help me in case I graphed it wrong. Normally I recommend counting breaths for the last 15s of each step, then multiply by 4 to get breaths per minute per stage.

Talk soon

[steveneal]

@danpyrs did you do this step test by heart rate, allowing power to come into the legs?

or did you hold power steady and let the heart rate rise?

[damonti]

Hi Steve. Yes I averaged the whole 5 min interval. I am sending the file. Many thanks!

[danpyrs]

@steveneal hi Steve, I did the test by heart rate. Didn’t really look at power. However I think the power was out because I did my MAP ramp test today and the power was 20watts higher at each stage. I don’t know if this would make much of a difference since the power was still constant.

I will try the HR test again next week to see if there are any differences.

Would test results like these without a clear LT1 indicate anything? Like a weak aerobic system?

Thanks
Dan

[steveneal]

Hi, ok thanks.

Here is the picture again, and there is deflection at 150w for respiration and the pwhr does go up a little (normally I see a flattening of the pwhr here)

The heart rates at the top are in % of max and are inline with what is a normal range. For AeT 60-75%, you are at 74% if we go with 150 watts.

The AT at 272 watts is at 96%. So a range here of 90-95% would be normal.

So the heart rate relative to respiration is a little high, meaning there is a need for more aerobic development, mostly from longer endurance training and proper tempo.

If we look at just one of your examples, 10m at 210 watts, 159 (77.5% max) how does this feel to you? like tempo? like threshold?

What are the training zones that you have been using for your training?

[steveneal]

Hello @damonti

You got it!

This gives you a good measurement to compare to in the future.

The only thing to consider now is what type of training to do to improve this picture?

[danpyrs]

Hi Steve @steveneal , thanks for this. The power was wrong for the above test I think so I did the following things:

I did a 3m ERG ramp test yesterday to get my MAP score. I stopped before failure just because I had a ride planned in the afternoon with a friend. I stopped at 2m into 350w. So I estimated that my MAP would of been 375w. I took 75% of the MAP for my FTP so about 280w which sound about right or a bit conservative but I’ll try it again in a couple of weeks.

Today I did a 30m aerobic test at average heart rate 169bpm at a power of 232w. I took 208 as my max heart rate and took 80-83% of mhr and stayed in that heart rate zone.

So for zones I’ve tried to correlate my heart rate and power which gives me:
Endurance 135bpm-156bpm(65-75%mhr) - 155w-210w
Tempo: 162bpm-173bpm (78-83%mhr) - 211-236w

These zones feel about right.

Doing both the tests gives me a Aerobic/MAP of 62%. Which tells me I need to work on my endurance and low tempo.

How high should I get the Aerobic/MAP ratio before I switch to higher intensity?

Also in terms of LT1 from listening to my breathing when riding the past few days it does feel that it gets deeper at about 155bpm. Which probably makes sense with what you said above. But I’ve used 208 as my max heart rate and you used 205. Should I use 205?

I think I’m on the right track and from reading up on your philosophies I’m looking forward to trying them out. Let me know if I’ve got this wrong!!

Thanks
Dan

[damonti]

Thank you very much indeed!

I think I have been too cautious. My easy rides have been too easy, like 110-115 bpm. I understand my stagnation now.

Starting with these new zones this week thanks again.

[steveneal]

@danpyrs

Doing both the tests gives me a Aerobic/MAP of 62%. Which tells me I need to work on my endurance and low tempo.

Hello,

Great notes!

Yes waiting to get to 70% minimum is ideal, if you are feeling really good and the MAP hasn’t dropped then I would keep going to see if you can get to 75%.

I will say that having an map of 375, and pushing the tempo to 250 is a really good goal, and you aren’t far away.

You may notice that your lose a little MAP but if you had 250-260w at tempo and 350w at MAP you would likely feel very strong.

@danpyrs

How high should I get the Aerobic/MAP ratio before I switch to higher intensity?

sorry answered in the wrong part of post 70-75%

@danpyrs

Also in terms of LT1 from listening to my breathing when riding the past few days it does feel that it gets deeper at about 155bpm. Which probably makes sense with what you said above. But I’ve used 208 as my max heart rate and you used 205. Should I use 205?

To be honest you can use either such a small difference but if you feel one is more correct use that. I don’t know if you train indoors a lot, but I would use an indoor max and outdoor max if they are different for your sessions and comparisons.

@danpyrs

I think I’m on the right track and from reading up on your philosophies I’m looking forward to trying them out. Let me know if I’ve got this wrong!!

Thanks

Sounds like you are well on your way!

Thanks for the great post.

[steveneal]

@damonti

Thank you very much indeed!

You are welcome!

Good luck with your training.

[danpyrs]

Thanks @steveneal much appreciated

[rkais]

@steveneal Hello, I wanted to bump this thread - I’ve read through it a couple of times and have found it very helpful as an aspiring long course triathlete.

I was curious if I could get some help with trying to approximate LT1 / LT2 from a power/heart rate step test I did today. You also mentioned the concept of ‘lactate balance point’ and where this crossover point happens in relation to LT1/LT2 for different athlete types. I’m curious if we can tell what type of athlete I am from my step test (balance point closer to LT1 vs LT2). Unfortunately, I do not have access to a lactate meter.

Some background on what I’m trying to address - I suspect that I have been doing a lot of my sub-LT1 work at too ‘easy’ of an effort level and am just looking for more of an expert opinion on how my ‘zones’ might line up.

Thanks in advance for any words of guidance!

[steveneal]

Hi @rkais let;s give this a go.

First thing we need to do is look at some of your data, the pwhr test works pretty well about 75% of the time.

If you can do the following:

4m steps, guided by heart rate.

start as as low as you can…50-55-60% of max heart rate.

Then every 4m add 5% to that for the following step, just let the power come into the legs as the heart rate allows.

Send me that fit file to steve at stevenealperformance dot com

We will go from there.

Balance Point I refer to can only be defined from lactate or VE measurements during a certain protocol. So either with lactate, a vo2master, a Tymewear shirt will give useful data.

Let’s start with the basic pwhr test first.

Steve

[rkais]

Thanks @steveneal - just emailed over to you!