AeT Test - odd profile | Uphill Athlete

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October 31, 2019 at 11:33 am #30987

derekosborne22
Participant

Hi Guys,

Did my monthly AeT test today and got an odd HR profile.

20 minute slow warmup to AeT of 120 and then held it at 15% incline 4.8kph for the required 60 mins. Avg for first 30mins of test was 125, for second 1/2 was 131. Gap of 6 so at 6/125 it’s 4.8 change so guess my AeT still around 120 – slighlty disappointing its not moved in last 4 week but hey ho, so be it. Will hold at 120 for next month’s block.

What was strange was the HR profile. The first half was a pretty linear increase in HR as expected till about 25 mins in at a HR of around 130 and then it slowed, plateaued at at between 131 and 133 and then started dropping in the last 5 minutes down to 129 – not a lot but a very obvious trend downwards. This is very different from the profile in my first two tests. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Derek
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Posted In: General Training Discussion

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Anonymous on October 31, 2019 at 7:41 pm #31017

Derek;

Don’t be dismayed. Stay the course. We are not machines and our response to training is almost never linear. Usually 10-12 weeks are needed to see some significant improvement.

As for the plateau, I can;t explain “why” but it is a positive trend for sure.

Scott

Participant

derekosborne22 on November 1, 2019 at 1:29 am #31025

Thanks Scott.

I’m going to stay the course for sure as I can feel the significant gains even if they didn’t transfer over to the test results. I feel really strong on the hill and am comfortably moving continuously for 4-5 hours with around 1000m vertical and no tiredness the following day.

Perhaps the jump from 110 to 120 after last test was too big and I’ve been training a little bit above AeT for last 4 weeks. Anyway unless you advise otherwise I’ll stay at 120 for another 4 weeks and then retest again.

I had planned to drop from 6 to 5 cardio days and add in one ME day next week. Given the test results should I stick to this plan or delay it a month and stick to cardio only.

Thanks again,
Derek

Participant

Dada on November 1, 2019 at 2:20 pm #31041

I thought the average of the first 30 minutes determines your AeT not the starting point?

Participant

derekosborne22 on November 3, 2019 at 6:41 am #31084

Hi Dada,

I may be wrong, but my understanding is you warm up to your AeT HR and that is the starting point for the 60 minutes drift test. The first 30 minute average is used as part of the drift calculation to see if your starting point is below, on or above your AeT and then you can adjust accordingly.

As I was completely new to this form of training and had no idea what my AeT was, I used the general formula: 180 less my age, then I took off a further 5 as I knew I had ASD, and used that for my initial test. The drift test result was over the 5% so I took a further 2 points off and started the program at that. I retested after 4 weeks and the delta had dropped to less than 3% so moved the HR up – in my case by 10 points.

Hope this helps,
Derek

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