Like a lot of people, I ended up here after listening to the Attia San Milan podcasts. About nine months ago I started doing “endurance” training, trying to focus entirely on zone 2. I’m doing almost all my work on a Versaclimber, and I’ve been doing 90 minute sessions 3 times a week, keeping my HR in the mid/high 130s, which was my guesstimate for AeT. I’m 43, fairly fit by “normal” standards and am pretty lean/muscular (5’11”, 200 lbs, ~10% body fat). So, something like Maffetone would put me at about 132, but I had been ratcheting that up a bit for my estimate because the talk/nasal breathing test puts me much higher. (I have videos of myself doing pure nasal breathing for a minute straight while both my Polar strap and Apple watch are reading 149-151.)
Anyway, I had a vo2 max test done two days ago (on a treadmill) just to establish some semi-trained baselines:
AeT=133
MEP=151
LT=170
HR at VO2 max=176
VO2 max=51
So, if you would suffer yet another newb, I have a few questions for you experts:
1) Obviously, my AeT is still way below my LT. What is more likely, that my pre-trained AeT was even lower and I’ve been pushing it up but still have a ways to go? Or, has my training in the 135-140 range been far enough off target that I’ve been in the dreaded no man’s land?
2) Is it normal for the talk/nasal breathing test to be so far off my actual AeT? Like I said, it’s extremely easy for me to nasal breathe in the mid 140s. At low 150s I can still nasal breathe, but it starts to feel uncomfortable, and by mid- to high-150s I start to have to take the occasional big mouth breath.
