@kurt.braeckel I have interacted with you off and on since I first joined (Fall 2018) and have not once thought your contributions were motivated by anything other than a desire to learn, inform, and participate. If you happen to pick up a few athletes along the way, awesome (coaches FTW, and coaching if you want to win lol )
Frankly I think that is what motivates most of us who are still around. Kudos
To me it’s really obvious when it gets too far away from the exchange of experiences and ideas.
Thanks, that is why I’m still here. I learn a lot, and it makes researching interesting things a lot easier when there are others out there already doing and thinking about these things. There are several really, really good threads on this forum that I’ve gravitated toward. Tremendously valuable discussions go on here that have nothing to do with TR, so I’m glad they allow us to have the forum to discuss these ideas!
And disclosure: I’m still a long grandfathered paying subscriber even though I rarely use the platform anymore. Still good to be up on what goes on with it as many of my club mates use it and ask questions about it.
So this season and last I’ve been mostly spot checking lactate levels during workouts to monitor workout intensity for some key workouts. A big change for me this year is using a Cp estimate from the 3 minute all out test. It’s difficult to execute inside on rollers, but from what i understand, as long as w’ is exhausted by about 2 minutes in, power reaches a stable reading.
Also I’m using a block training method of planning my microcycles, started with z2 focus, then tempo, just finished a ss block and will move on to a vo2 block next. This is inspired by the classic data about adaptions to a new stimulus occurring within 1 to 2 weeks then stabilizing after about 6 sessions.
Progress is coming along nicely, i definitely need to work the middle zone due to my muscular phenotype. Wrestling and skiing favor glycolytic energy systems and in general mountain biking does as well.
Lactate after 95/105 sets went from 8 mmol down to 6 and lactate at 75% of my ftp estimate was still right around baseline (1.5 mmol for me).
So for my estimates of lt1, i was using point were respiratory rate goes above 15 which appears to be just the inflection point in my lactate curve. I will want to do a running assessment soon to see if my curve has changed shape since i last did one of those for running a few years ago.
15 watts below my Cp estimate seemed a really good point to use for training, it was definitely higher than a ramp would have estimated, but no workout was ever in danger of failure.
Real quick (don’t want to stray off topic) but what did you use to get CP? Two efforts? Three effort estimate? Or something based on 3 mins that I’m not familiar with?
Since you did the nscyd test i thought you were familiar with the overpaced 3 minutes Cp estimate. I’ll try to say overpaced from now on instead of all-out. It’s a horrible 3 minutes, but when compared to a ramp test i recover from it much quicker.
always difficult to listen to while riding, the only time when I listen to podcasts. However, this was mainly about LT2/MLSS/FTP and so, correct? Not really about AeT/LT1.
I couldn’t care less about LT2/MLSS. I see no value in knowing this threshold. Quite contrary to AeT/LT1.
Completely agree. If Kolie thinks everyone is still using lactate to try to get at LT2/MLSS (besides Darth for fun), he’s out of touch (he’s not in general…but seems like it regarding why use lactate)
RPE, I guess. So why do I need a power meter then?
I’m also the only one on the planet (evidently) who doesn’t trust RPE and marvels at how “feel” has become SO scientific now. It isn’t “feel” anymore, it’s RPE. Because a different word makes it acceptable
when you have dubious and unproven ways of measuring a lower level of intensity that is in many cases more important than an upper threshold
get some insight into metabolism during exercise
Sometimes.
Question: what if we had an indirect marker for when Type IIa fibers were starting to be recruited (in a non-trivial way)? Useful? Not useful? And how would you use that information, if you had it? And maybe you don’t have a marker for that. But…maybe you do.
I am not saying it is useless. I am saying it is a very unpractical, not so relevant tool. You need a lab and/or expensive equipment. You cannot use it outside. You need time to see the results.
Power meters on the other hand…
My ftp is 3.8 mmol. So? What am I supposed to do with it? Is there a realtime, non-invasive and practical meter out there? You know, like a power meter.
He said at the start that the title was click-baity.
Reading, er listening, between the lines, it seems like Kolie has been playing with lactate. I’m not sure if that is a new thing for him but I’ve never heard him mention it before.
He didn’t say it was useless. He was kind of suggesting the longer stages similar to ISM’s protocol. He was also suggesting using the power duration curve as a jumping off point so you didn’t have to use so many strips.
I’m going to have to listen again but I don’t think I ever heard how a power meter makes lactate testing obsolete other than to test LT2/FTP.
Another WindWarrior voodoo post: for me its dropping cadence to 40-60rpm, with power at roughly 80% FTP. I don’t bother looking at torque on my head unit, but that’s an option. I do review per-ride torque histograms in WKO. Practically speaking that appears to result in an increase in muscular endurance and along with it long steady state performance (20+ minute time trials). My SPECULATION is that its related to making Type IIa fibers more aerobic, but it could be from increasing fatigue resistance of Type 1 fibers. Or both. Or neither. I spent a minute discussing with my coach, and since it was speculation we dropped the topic and moved on to a more productive conversation. In any case, I’m going to claim the evidence I have is that this type of effort is a training adaptation that works for me. I primarily use this during base, however I’ve also seen boosts in performance mid-season after doing long tempo climbs at low cadence (a natural consequence of being 3W/kg with road gearing).
Back on the latest Emprical podcast, the topic sounds similar to a FasCat blog post and podcast. Frank Overton used to do MLSS lactate testing, here is a 2017 article: Maximal Lactate Steady State Testing – FasCat Coaching describing the 10-min / 10W step protocol they used. And then at some point they dropped it and switched to do power based field test. For the lower aerobic threshold I’ve learned to push power and pay attention to subjective feelings - balancing slow increases in aerobic power against recovery and ability to complete hard workouts. Very happy with the results of using this power/subjective balancing act. It helps having some solid ‘all-day’ HR data.
Without having listened to Kolie’s podcast, I’m guessing its going to resonate with me because I’m not planning any lactate testing. This thread is about approximating LT1 without a test, because of the perception (ISM influenced) that focusing on LT1 will improve results from endurance training.
Definitely listen if/when you have time. That question from me you quoted was (admittedly) me baiting (in a non-confrontational way, of course) @redlude97. If you listen to around 36:25 into the podcast, KM doesn’t prescribe to “a particular model of fiber type”, which is exactly what my question/statement above is driving at. If you prescribe to that model (which would be common these days, it’s in every ex phyz presentation and is what we learned in school), it is very useful to know some “transition” from using predominantly Type I to a non-trivial recruitment of Type IIa. If you don’t prescribe to that model (whatever that means, we will have to “just chill, til the next episode” LOL), then that explains why you would simply ignore it.
There are enough fanboys that KM just saying it will make it truth, but that’s ok, I like that he challenges. Having said that, RPE still sucks.
And as you speculate, increased recruitment of Type IIa is (from what I understand) the common justification for low cadence work.
Without a physiology background, my keep it simple engineering sense of the size principle is that it might be possible to use power, torque/cadence, and HR as indirect markers. Which leads to triangulation and individuation challenges.
However I don’t think about it from a marker point-of-view, because I’m a simple minded engineer, and instead its about desired increases in muscular endurance in order to ‘enjoy’ 1-3 hour mountain climbs with my road gearing. And having done this over several seasons, I’ve noticed the other performance benefits.
And FWIW I’ve also noticed lower torque inside vs outside, for the same work, in particular when following TR SSB workout advice of ‘keep your cadence 85-95rpm’ while in erg mode. Even while using the big chainring on my Kickr. Which possibly explains why low momentum / high torque climbing feels to me like high cadence, high momentum (big chainring) / not quite as high torque interval training on my Kickr direct-drive. Because even with high momentum on the trainer, the torque is always lower and its not as hard as doing the work outside.
Evidently you didn’t get the “group riding is evil” memo. Neither did I. Or maybe I did, but ignored it these last 2 years for reasons that we won’t discuss in this thread.
Sure why not. I’ve been DMing with some folks and why not just say hi here. I should probably try to read the whole thread at some point.
First, the real intended audience for the podcast was me, because I had the realization that was the premise of the episode and always thought it’d be fun to do. It was a blast. And yes I’ve been “playing with lactate” for years. But you’d probably be shocked with the number of people who ask me to interpret lactate test data, RER data, blood tests (don’t ask me I have no idea), or who are overtraining because of poor testing protocol and training targets. And as I work with more experienced people, the higher level coaches are all over the map with this stuff, so a secondary target would be them. Definitely not targeted at the average cyclist, but I’m not marketing minded in any way so if it connects with nobody, then oh well, lots of hours spent to satisfy myself on something esoteric. Pretty typical for me I’d say.
Second, the next episode is dealing with fiber type, since in that aside mid-episode I realized it’d be fun to look at fiber types in relation with metabolism and recruitment. So we’ll get into one or two papers I love and have always wanted to do on the podcast. It’s the topic of the next episode. Spoiler alert: it depends, and it’s also largely (but not totally) irrelevant. The same way I think lactate testing is nearly obsolete. There’s invariably one or two asterisks.
I’m flattered some people think I have fanboys, and while it’s nice to hear a “good job” now and then it will never quite penetrate the imposter syndrome and self doubt. On the bright side, I really pay attention to people who write me telling me about how I’m wrong, which happens fairly often. In all seriousness, that’s my favorite feedback. I should probably scroll all the way up, I bet I’ll learn a lot.
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