Well, I took the plunge. I bought a lactate meter.
On Saturday, I administered a 7x4' step test, as defined by the Australian Institute of Sport. Here's the link
http://www.rowingaustralia.com.au/docs/ ... rowing.pdf
The test starts tamely enough at a power of 150w. You row for 4 minutes and then take a minute rest during which you take a measure of your blood lactate level. Then you increment power by 25 watts and do it again. Repeat until power is up at 275W, then the fun begins. After that step, you take a minute rest and then do 4 minutes flat out. The "official" term they use is "to exhaustion".
The test is supposed to help you define your lactate threshold, but this one is mainly to set a baseline. The training plan I will be using is lots of steady state meters with a blood lactate level below 2.2mmol/l and 2 or 3 threshold workouts per week. I will repeat the full test in a couple of months to see if I have successfully moved the curve to the right.
Here is a description of the test and results.
I modified the protocol slightly because I was testing myself. It took me more like 1:30 to complete the multistep process for the lactate test in each break. I think as long as I use the same rests the next time I do the test, I should have consistent results.
The protocol was.
- throughly wipe both hands with clean damp towel.
- dry both hands
- wipe left fingertip with alcohol swab
- prick finger, wipe away inital drop of blood
- put strip in meter
- massage a nice round little drop of blood from the test site
- apply blood drop to strip
- wait 13 seconds
- record reading
It took a few steps to get this process down and sometimes it took me a couple of samples to get a successful test, the meter would indicate a sampling error. The 175W test was completely botched so I don't trust that data point. By the end I was pretty good at it, but my finger tip is a bit, well, perforated and sore.
Here is the plot:
There a few things I don't quite understand.
- Generally, below the lactate inflection point, measurements should be below 2.0mmol/l, but mine kind of bounced around the 2.0 level. I'm not sure if that means that I just have a higher resting lactate level or if there is something wrong with testing.
- At the end of the test, you are supposed take a sample immediately and then again after 4 minutes. My first reading was 15.0, the second was 16.7. These readings seem pretty darn high compared to other tests t hat I have seen. Again, I wonder if it is testing errors or person to person differences driving the results.
But it was informative none the less. My lactate threshold seems to be about 237 watts (1:53 pace) which was a HR right about 160. My measured max was 183, which is a bit lower than I have seen briefly in other workouts (186), but probably about as high as it would get without additional cardiac drift at the end of a longer workout.
From the test, I think I will use a steady state pace of 185. I will do a lactate test after the first 20' of a steady state session. If it is higher than 2.2 I will adjust downward, if it is lower than 1.8 I will adjust upward. I am doing this since the resting lactate and lower wattage lactates were all a bit higher in the test than what I have seen elsewhere. I would welcome feedback on this decision since this is all new to me.
Here is the classic dan burpee view of the test.
Red = "pain"
A word on the splits shown below. Each 4 minute section is split into the first 3:30, and the 0:30. The test calls for the avg HR during the last 30 seconds of each step, so that was the easiest way to calculate it. The maximum heart rate was supposed to be the highest 5 second average in the last section. For me that happened to be anywhere in the last minute which was just about all at 183 BPM.
Output
Workout Summary - Oct 19, 2013
--_|_Total_|_-Total-_|_--Avg--_|_-Avg-_|_Avg-_|_-Max-_|_--Max--_|_-Avg
--_|_Dist-_|_-Time--_|_-Pace--_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_-HR--_|_-%HRR--_|_-DPS
--_|_07277_|_28:00.0_|_01:55.4_|_227.6_|_23.0_|_185.0_|_ 99.3% _|_11.3
Workout Details
#-_|_SDist_|_-Split-_|_-SPace-_|_Watts_|_SPM-_|_MaxHR_|_Max%HRR_|_DPS-
01_|_00791_|_03:30.0_|_02:12.7_|_149.8_|_19.1_|_126.0_|_ 56.5% _|_11.8
02_|_00114_|_00:30.0_|_02:11.7_|_153.3_|_20.0_|_130.0_|_ 59.4% _|_11.4
03_|_00835_|_03:30.0_|_02:05.8_|_176.0_|_20.0_|_139.0_|_ 65.9% _|_11.9
04_|_00119_|_00:30.0_|_02:06.1_|_174.4_|_20.0_|_139.0_|_ 65.9% _|_11.9
05_|_00876_|_03:30.0_|_01:59.9_|_203.0_|_21.4_|_141.0_|_ 67.4% _|_11.7
06_|_00125_|_00:30.0_|_02:00.5_|_200.3_|_20.0_|_143.0_|_ 68.8% _|_12.5
07_|_00908_|_03:30.0_|_01:55.6_|_226.6_|_21.7_|_156.0_|_ 78.3% _|_12.0
08_|_00130_|_00:30.0_|_01:55.8_|_225.6_|_22.0_|_155.0_|_ 77.5% _|_11.8
09_|_00943_|_03:30.0_|_01:51.3_|_253.8_|_24.0_|_163.0_|_ 83.3% _|_11.2
10_|_00135_|_00:30.0_|_01:51.2_|_254.5_|_24.0_|_165.0_|_ 84.8% _|_11.2
11_|_00973_|_03:30.0_|_01:47.9_|_278.7_|_25.4_|_171.0_|_ 89.1% _|_10.9
12_|_00138_|_00:30.0_|_01:48.3_|_275.2_|_24.0_|_171.0_|_ 89.1% _|_11.5
13_|_01037_|_03:30.0_|_01:41.2_|_337.4_|_29.1_|_185.0_|_ 99.3% _|_10.2
14_|_00153_|_00:30.0_|_01:38.0_|_372.3_|_30.0_|_183.0_|_ 97.8% _|_10.2
I'll post an update on occasion if people are interested in this approach to training.