[MC]

Hello everyone 🙂

Until now, I have been a “weekend warrior”, climbing approx. every other week in the mountains since years, sometimes > 6000 feet/day, climbing rather slow and steadily, I think because of rather weak leg muscles.

My heart drift test (25% incline, 2,2 miles/h) resulted in a heart rate of 159 bpm.

I just did the DIY Anaerobic Threshold Test, after warm up with less incline because I already felt my calf muscles after some minutes of walking, after 25 Minutes (10% incline, 6 miles/h) resulting in a heart rate of 171 bpm. That would be within the 10% difference..

But is this result usable?
I suppose that my “real” anaerobic threshold would be higher than 171 bpm?
Is the conclusion wrong (because the anaerobic threshold is wrong?), that I should train during my aerobic base period mainly in Z1 and that I would benefit a lot from Muscular Endurance Workouts?

Thank you a lot for your help and Kind regards from Germany 🙂

Topic

[Rachel]

Rachel on January 30, 2021 at 1:09 pm #50114

It’s important to do both tests when you are well-rested and separately from each other (I’m not sure if you did them in a row or not.)

If you were tired during the warmup I think you might want to do the test again, especially if you think your anaerobic threshold might be higher.

If the difference is still less than 10% then yes, Z1 for your aerobic base work instead of Z2. And ME or some high intensity work depending on where you are in your training cycle and your goals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on January 30, 2021 at 5:02 pm #50135

In addition to what @rachelp mentioned, I would try to do both tests at the same incline.* Heart rate is only the first measure of thresholds. Especially once they narrow below 10% in terms of BPM, then you want to focus on threshold speeds. Having those at the same incline will make them more comparable.

Also, can you post the public links to the Training Peaks workouts?

—

* When walking uphill, you want your heels to touch the ground. That might help with calf fatigue.

[MC]

MC on January 31, 2021 at 2:13 pm #50170

Rachelp and Scott, thank you a lot for your helpful answers!

I did the anaerobic threshold test after 2 days of resting and felt good before the test. I phrased that wrong, I was not tired during the warm up, but after 20-25 Minutes of warm up I started the test, and already after 5 minutes I felt my legs, mainly my thighs would not sustain this for 30 minutes, so I lowered the incline from 25% to 10%. But still I mainly felt that my thighs were the limiting factor, not my breath. Possibly, this would be the same, when I did the test again.

Only the last 5 minutes I raised the speed a little bit more resulting in heavier breathing. But I would have not sustained this for many more minutes. Is my anaerobic threshold perhaps rather in the range of 178?

I try to figure out at the moment how the TP links are shown here.. (the link function does not work unfortunately).

Thank you again!

[MC]

MC on January 31, 2021 at 2:20 pm #50176

Aerobic Threshold Test

[MC]

MC on January 31, 2021 at 2:21 pm #50177

Anaerobic Threshold Test

(even if there is written aerobic threshold run)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 1, 2021 at 4:48 am #50210

I’ll dig into these more later, but they both look too fast.

For the AeT, HR didn’t plateau until about the 150s. It’s still climbing a lot during the test.

For the AnT, the HR is quite variable. The high-170s is closer to a peak HR than an average for the final 30 minutes. By the HR graph, it looks like the speed was set too high and had to be adjusted more than once.

I’ll look closer later.

[MC]

MC on February 1, 2021 at 8:47 am #50229

Thank you!

For the AeT, I did not change the speed from minuten 15-20 on.

For the AnT, you are right! Minute 29 has to be the moment when I changed the setting lowering the incline and increasing the speed. Afterwards there were 2 or 3 minor increases of the speed as I felt that I was not yet at my aerobic limit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 1, 2021 at 1:23 pm #50258

I did not change the speed from minuten 15-20 on.

Yes. In the drift test description, I’m pretty sure that it says to warm up to an easy pace where heart rate flat lines. If it continues to rise (a lot) during the test, it won’t be helpful.

For the AnT, you are right! Minute 29 has to be the moment when I changed the setting lowering the incline and increasing the speed. Afterwards there were 2 or 3 minor increases of the speed as I felt that I was not yet at my aerobic limit.

Yeah, this is a problem with a treadmill AnT test. It’s easy to force the speed. I’ve seen this several times. It’s better to do it off of a treadmill because then it’s a test of internal load rather than external. That will get you much closer to finding your AnT.

Based on your most recent test, I think the high-170s are too high. And overestimating AnT is a recipe for disaster.

[MC]

MC on February 1, 2021 at 3:21 pm #50273

Thank you again Scott for your effort!

Regarding the Aet:
You mean, the test is too short, as the heart rate stabilizes “too late” at minute 20?
I gradually built up speed until the heart rate stabilized in the area of 160 since minute 20. The heart rate from minute 20 to 30 is stable at 158-159 (you think this is near the aerobic threshold?). In the first section from minute 25 to 45 the heart rate is 161, in the second section of 20 minutes my average heart rate is 166. This would be in the 5% range. Yes, but the actual test then was only 45 minutes.

Regarding the AnT:
Thank you for your tip, I will do this test outside again!

[Rachel]

Rachel on February 1, 2021 at 4:22 pm #50287

MC, I don’t know if you use Strava, but something I find motivating is to do my AnT test on a Strava segment. It added additional motivation to do my best and keep going when I wanted to collapse and roll down the mountain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 4, 2021 at 7:05 am #50426

Excellent idea, @rarichard. That’s the one thing I like about Strava: the ability to compare past sessions.

@mathiscamerer: Let’s wait until you do the AnT test outside. (Make sure you’re well-recovered with at least two easy days before.) Once you do the AnT test, I can guesstimate a heart rate to target for the AeT test.

[MC]

MC on February 4, 2021 at 8:45 am #50437

Thank you Rachel and Scott! Unfortunately, I have not used Strava yet.
I will do the test tomorrow.

Unfortunately there is no steep hill without snow around.
Is in this case the flat running track outside or the treadmill better?

[MC]

MC on February 5, 2021 at 8:19 am #50466

I did the AnT now outside on a running track:

Anaerobic Threshold Test

Mean heart rate would be 179 bpm. I had 4 days of rest or low-level training. After minute 15 the test started with holding a constant pace until the end (at the beginning of the test with volatile heart rates up to 225 bpm, I am not sure if this was rather a recording problem). Only the last 3-5 minutes I tried to further accelerate but it was not really possible. I was constantly heavily breathing throughout the workout. Perhaps I could have held the pace a bit longer, but it felt like faster would not have been possible for long time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 12, 2021 at 1:42 pm #50787

With respect to the high heart rates at the beginning:

* Was this measured with a chest strap?
* Did you wet the strap contact patches before putting it on?

If so, then the average HR of the last 20 minutes looks like 177.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 19, 2021 at 5:35 am #51002

Was this measured with a chest strap?

If not, the test is likely useless.