My INSCYD report

Training
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SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE DISCLAIMER

Looking at my TR profile everything looks pretty average: Right now I am training towards the end of SSBMV2 with an FTP of 276W (3.92 W/kg). Everything feels great, and I am already looking forward to my next ramp test.

However, a few days ago I took an INSCYD lactate diagnostic. This was the general testing procedure:

INSCYD%20test%20procedure
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This is the measurement protocol of my test (the values on the left are there by default and used as starting values for their optimizer, the values on the right are the actual measurement runs):

INSCYD%20measurement%20protocol
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Finally, the INSCYD software generated this report out of it:

INSCYD report.pdf (391.2 KB)

At first, the report looked pretty devastating to me. :disappointed_relieved: My VO2max is far lower than I expected (46.2 ml/min/kg), and I am still trying to wrap my head around things.

It seems that I am “only” making the maximum out of that low VO2Max: I have a very high utilization (96%) and my VLaMax is as low as it can get (0.1 mmol/l/s).

Over the last 2 years, I did mostly Olympic Triathlon Mi/Hi-Volume Base/Build/Specialty cycles (without the swims).

I hope you guys (especially @Mikael_Eriksson ) can give me some insight on how I could raise my VO2max most effectively, because according to INSCYD this is my only way to raise my FTP. Moreover, it would be interesting why these results are so out of balance. Is it just muscle fibre types?

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Can I ask where you did this test? I’m wondering how you managed to do it but didn’t get any advice of what to do with the results. Did you have blood drawn as well or did you just do power tests and send in your file?

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There are a couple of inconsistencies in the report:
*A FTP of 276W and VO2max of 46 would put you in a ballpark of VLaMax 0.18
*Or the other way around VO2max of 46 and VLaMax of 0.1 would put you in a ballpark of FTP 370W
*The INSCYD report shows a value of VLaMax of 0.1 but the Spreadsheet shows VLaMax 0.6. How do these document relate to each other?
*VO2Max for both documents vary as well 46.2 vs. 43.38?

If I see it correctly then you are based in Germany. You can rent a lactate analysers for €15,- a week (plus test strips): http://www.sport-components.de/?cat=c40_Leihservice.html to verify calculated results…

The calcuation for VLaMax is normally done through an all-out test 15sec or 30sec. VLaxMax = (Lactacte_Max - Lactate_Rest) / (all-out-period - period-no-lactate).

Lactate_Max is measured after the all-out effort. It can raise up to 10 minutes after the effort. Starting with 3 minutes after the effort you start taking lactate samples until the value goes down and take the highest measured value.

German explanation: https://tri-mag.de/training/laktatbildungsrate-verstaendlich-erklaert-144509

Example:
15 seconds all-out effort. Lactate_Rest before the effort is 2.0. The highest measured value after the all-out effort is 10.9. 13 seconds of the all-out effort was lactate building period:

VLaMax = (10.9 - 2.0) / (15sec - 2 sec) = 0.684.

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I took the test in Germany. The advice was to concentrate on Base and Medio zones, and, later in the season, I should do some VO2max work. No specifics, since I bought only the test, not their training plan service. The test was performed in their lab, blood was drawn there.

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The test procedure you see in the original post is pretty standard for INSCYD, at least to my knowledge. As the test protocol (see the box Data Quality) indicates, sprints seem to be an optional component to it.

These are the starting values for the optimizer, these values of the measurement protocol correspond to the (non-optimized) curves on the left hand side on the last page of the report.

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Does that high utilization make sense to you? Ie what is your power at VO2max, and can you hold 96% of that for an extended period? 96% seems very high.

For this to be true, you would experience one of the following in your TR workouts:

  1. VO2max workouts (eg kaiser) are impossible, with threshold workouts (eg lamarck) about right.
  2. VO2max workouts are appropriately tough, and threshold workouts are very easy, feeling more like low SS instead.

Either of these the case?

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Almost 4w/kg on a 46 VO2max is incredible frankly, but it speaks to the type of training you have been doing.

VO2max is a lot more trainable than previously thought, so keep that in mind. It’s just going to be very uncomfortable.

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My anaerobic threshold computed by INSCYD is 251W (as 96% of my VO2Max), this corresponds to 90% of my TrainerRoad-FTP of 276W. I could hold this for an hour, for sure.

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If I got a report like that I am not sure where I would go next. I am sure all the numbers are very good to a scientist but I doubt they are that helpful to a cyclist who doesn’t have that training.

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Everything sub 3min with breaks long enough (!) I can handle. The fast 3min block of the test was at 125% of my TR-FTP resulting in 15.7mmol/l lactate, but somehow this felt ok, not all out.

That said, something like Ansel Adams -1 or San Joaquin +4 would completely destroy me. Only TR Sweet Spot feels good. Everything longer than 3min and above Sweet Spot, these are the things where it gets hard, over-unders are the worst.

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based on how I understood the interview with Sebastian Weber, you’d want to focus on a lot of zone 2 work (no need to do the mid zone work) and VO2max work. Depending on your cycling focus, you may eventually want to try to get the VlaMax up… but only if you want to try and increase some of your punchy efforts.

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I was thinking this thread could be an INSCYD support group. :sweat_smile: This is what I know until know. Bora-Hansgrohe works with INSCYD. Their head coach explains some details here

These are my take-aways

IncreaseVLaMax
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IncreaseVO2Max
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DecreasingVLaMax
DecreasingVLaMax920Ă—487 91.1 KB

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Thank you! My understanding is that Sebastian Weber has developed the algorithm of INSCYD. In a talk he gave he gave the following advice

image
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Your highest measured lactate value is 15 point something. If you look at the definition of VLaMax then it becomes pretty clear that a VLaMax value of 0.1 is completely off. It just cannot be correct from a theoretical perspective.

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This would be great, @abalakov. And I was saying something similar to the guy performing the test. Then he showed me the fitted curves and how very low the provided error value was in my case. So it seems it somehow fits their model. I am not saying you’re wrong, I actually hope you’re right. I am simply trying to understand this :smiley:

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So INSCYD calculates your power at VO2max as 261W (251/0.96), vs a TR FTP of 276? This doesn’t seem right.

Before designing a training plan off the results, worth spending some time to validate the results. Something seems off if the above is the case…

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It does seem right when the lab test is based on lactate levels and TR’s is based on an estimate from a VO2 max like effort.

AT in a lab based on physiological response, FTP is based on a functional test, which may have errors due to shorter duration.

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Precisely! Maybe the TR ramp test doesn’t work for me…

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In the report, you can see how they fit the values in to the model, so VLamax is actually just estimated in to the model and not actually tested.

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I will agree though, that if you hit 368 in your ramp test that power at VO2max does seem a bit low.