Heart Rate and Target Zones (Page 2)

Ok, so basically my coach's LT testing protocol is.

1. take your LT with a lactate analyzer at "rest"

2. get on the treadmill (setting incline to 1.0% grade) and begin running (he starts me at about 6.5 mph) for 3 minutes

3. at minute 3 tell my coach my HR

4. jump off treadmill (actually do the splits on the side of the treadmill)

5. wipe finger to be pricked with alcohol swab

6. prick my finger

7. wipe off initial blood with cotton (in order to obtain a clean, a non-alcohol affected blood sample)

8. squee more blood out of my finger onto the lactate analyzer

9. jump back on and continue running

(steps 4-8 take approximately 20 seconds)

10. at minute 4 increase speed 0.2mph

11. run at this speed for 3 minutes again

12. repeat steps 3-11 until you pass your LT, which is 4.0 mMol

Keep in mind that this is a 2 person test as you can't do it by yourself because you become a little uncoordinated/tired when you near your LT. An additional part of the protocol is of course, recording the results. So after step 3, my coach records my HR and after step 8 he records the result from the analyzer.

So basically that's it.

He does the same thing on the bike too. (except I don't have to jump off the bike of course)! He makes me stay right at 80 rpm the entire test. Oh, also, the last bike LT test I did we didn't increase the speed on the bike, but rather the resistance on the spin bike but keeping my rpm at 80 the ENTIRE test.

Steve et al,

Lacking access to a lab and the ability to draw and study blood. Determination of LT through the protocol linked to by zia_cyclist seems to be a decent option... Doesn't it?

http://www.d3multisport.com/articles/determinezones.html

There are 2 schools of thought on this.

1 school is that, yes, this is a pretty accurate assessment of your LT.

the other school (the one I'm in) is that it may not be accurate becuase of the one main reason. The more fit you get, the longer you can ride, run, or swim above your LT. And honestly, 20 minutes of riding "hard" could very easily be above your LT. I know that I can ride FOR SURE above my bike LT for 20 minutes so if I were to determine my LT using this protocol and determine my HR zones from it, I would be training in completely incorrect HR zones, which means my performance on race day would be significantly less than if I were training in the correct (and in this example....lower) HR zones.

Probabaly a more accurate way to determine your LT is to determine where your ventilatory (sp?) threshold is. That means, on the bike or when running, pay attention to your breathing while gradually increasing your speed. Once you notice your breathing change to when you begin to start sucking in air, look at your heartrate and that is probabaly a much better guage w/o a lactate analyzer.

anyway, that's the camp I'm in, but you'll find many people who disagree with me.

However, let me clarify that if you are relatively new to "working out" and your fitness would be considered "average" then the protocol mentioned in the link would be quite accurate. But as you gain fitness you gain the ability to "deal with" lactate in your system and consequently, continue running and/or biking above LT.

If you want to gain a "baseline" for determining HR zones and you're of "average" fitness they this protocol is probably pretty accurate but if you want to (as you should) retest your LT a few months later to adjust your trng HR zones during the season, this method would then become more and more innacurate as you gain fitness.

Knowing all this, however, two things can not be disputed in either school of thought:

1. lactate analyzer protocol is the BEST way to determine LT

2. a fit athlete can quite easily bike and/or run above their LT for 20 minutes, making the protocol you mention quite inaccurate.

IMHO


Edited by Steve- 2004-12-08 2:29 PM

Steve,

I have no doubt that a lactate analyzer test is the best method, but I do not have the inclination or where-with-all to have such a test done.

So what is my option?

It's a $50 test at a unversity and definatley well worth it....

but, i suppose your option would be to do a RPE test on the treadmill and be VERY honest with yourself when looking at the RPE scale. have someone do the same protocol (4 minutes before increasing speed 0.2mph) and at each 3 minute mark say what RPE you feel and read out your HR and have that person record the data. Go up to an RPE of about 17 or 18.

once you finish that test, e-mail me the data and we'll talk about it.

if you want to compare that to the protocol mentioned on the website you said, you can do that test too (no sooner than 1 week later) and we can compare the LT resultant info to see the difference.

sound good?

Wow, it seems like there is some great advice on this board.

I think by far the lactate test using the blood is best. I have always had a lot of success personally with the 30 min "field test"".

Remember, though your HR values can change daily. And yes, each sport will have its own specific zones.


If you were running on a treadmill, doing "max effort" and thought you could go no further, if someone was threatning your life, I bet you could go just a little longer.



So the nature of Max Heart rate is very subjective.

Think about it like this:

Lets say you are holding a paper cup. How large the cup is represents your V02 max, or Max HR, which is basically a non trainable thing. Now lets put a hole in the bottom of the cup. That hole is your LT, which IS trainable. So if we start pouring water into the cup, so long as we are doing it at a rate the cup can get rid of the water at, your are below LT. Once you start to pour the water in faster then the cup can dispense of it your above LT, and are on borrowed time. As one of the people here state, yes, the more fit you are the longer you can sustain above LT workloads.

This is also why HR is only ONE variable in your workout. You have RPE, power, pace, and other indicators to let you know how you are doing.


I think if you are warmed up well, a 5k race is a great enviorment to get an average HR for your LT. for very motivated or fit athletes, I set the LT just below that result, and we "try it out". It is up to the athlete to tell me how those zones feel. we can always adjust.

Adam

I have yet to try the 30 min TT LT test, but Steve does bring up a good point about being able to sustain above-LT effort for longer than 30 minutes. I forget where I read it, but to account for this you can divide by 1.02-1.04.

Steve, maybe you could do the test, and then compare the result to your actual LT?

I know for me, on average in the past it tends to be about 5 beats high. I am not sure if this is because in a "race" situation I am more motivated, therefore its more accurate then when Im training solo, or if because Im excited in the race, I can sustain it longer.

I think that while we CAN sustain an effort above LT for more then 30 min, it will take at least some of that time to come up too, then pass LT which will help bring down the average.

As un Ultrafit coach I was able to ask Joe Friel his opinion.

Enjoy.

Adam,

There's no doubt that someone can stay above their LT for more than 20
minutes -- when well rested and highly motivated. (BTW, it's not a "20
minute" TT, it's a 30-min TT with the average HR for the last 20 minutes
indicating LTHR.) 40k TTs, even by moderately fit cyclists who take about an
hour or even slightly longer, are typically done above LT by a small amount.
A highly fit athlete, such as Lance, could probably stay above it for 90
minutes or so -- when well rested and highly motivated. This can be trained.
The question is, can someone stay above their lactate threshold (not
necessarily LT heart rate, realize) for more than 60 minutes when not highly
motivated. That's why I use a 30-minute TT during a workout and not a
ace -- not completely rested and not highly motivated. If someone wants to
do a race that lasts about an hour, even better. Let's do that instead of a
30 min TT.

Is a lactate analysis perfect? No. There is a basic assumption made when
doing this that 4mmol of lactate means LT has been achieved. It's documented
that some don't go anaerobic until 5 mmol (or higher) and others are
anaerobic at 4.5mmol. In fact, lactate itself has some real issues. If one
eats a very high carbohydrate diet in the last few hours before a blood draw
their lactate is higher than usual. If they avoid carbohydrate lactate
production will be low. And, of course, lactate is only an indirect
indicator of acidosis. It really causes no problems for the body. It's the
side product of lactate -- hydrogen ions -- that are the problem.

Make sense?

Joe

Anytime.

Helps to be on his coaching staff..

So, in essence, there is no perfect test. We are in the land of theory.

I think that I will just have to do the best with what I have and what I have access to. At any rate, I will be better off than I was last year.

Steve,

I may take you up on your offer if I can get to a treadmill. I fear a treadmill, however, because the last time I was on one I got a nasty case of motion sickness. Thanks

Thanks to all that posted. I have learned a ton.

WOW! Great thread! It is great to have some coaches here sharing what they know. THANK YOU!

TTB says that training is a blend of art and science. This whole discussion is a good example of that.

Deb

This is an excellent point but we need to keep in mind, as with everything we've been discussing here, it's not always the case for all athletes...as is everything related to LT.

For example, my coach had this "low vs. high carbo diet affect on lactic acid production" tested on me.

I had my bike LT tested using the lactate analyzer method after a "normal" carbohydrate breakfast 2 hours before the test and another test a different day (of course) with a "carbo load" breakfast 2 hours before the test and my bike LTHR was not different.

Getting back to B-one's original question of this thread....Although some athletes' LT may be higher than 4.0mMol as Joe states, I think he may be in agreement that targeting an interpolated 4.0mMol result from data acquired from the 4min protocol LT test I spoke about is much more accurate than using a max HR formula (the original question of this thread) or even using max HR to determine your training zones.

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that, although determining LT is an art AND science, determining HR training zones from a max HR test (or max HR formula) is much more unreliable/inaccurate than from a LT test.

when you get motion sickness are you looking at the treadmill when you're running or are you looking beyond the treadmill (like some part of the room or wall)?

I've found that if I don't focus on the treadmill (the readouts, data, etc.) but rather look past the treadmill to a wall this tends to help me alleviate a "very" slight motion sickness I feel somtimes.

and that, even though we are in the theoretical realm dealing with individual genetic and training differences, we should use the most reliable method at our disposal.

That method may be different for each of us, but there is no excuse for any of us using an estimated max heart rate based upon age to determine our target zones. Anyone reading this thread now knows better and has a wealth of knowledge from which to draw upon.

Hmmm....very interesting concept. I had never heard it. Still, don't you need to take max rate into account? What if you have someone who actually is very close to having LT=Max. Couldn't that theoretically create some zones that are above his max?
For that matter, how do you figure out your zones once you have your LT?

LT=Max is the "optimal" condition. I know of no one in which it exists...so your question may be moot. Perhaps someone in this forum could share their experience with coaching/knowing someone who has their running LT=max HR....

zones above your LT are zones which are basically used for:

1. teaching to body to deal with (and subsequently flush out) lactic acid at a higher heart rate

2. teach your mind to deal with your body when it is above LT

so even if your LT is close to your max HR you'll still be able to train above your LT.

Steve, Zucco and others,

Attached is a spreadsheet I used to determine my LT.  This is based on the protocol in The Training Bible.  Any insites, comments, opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

TJ

Attachments
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LT calc.xls (23KB - 53 downloads)

thank you all for the great thread.

I see your VT is at 17, which leads me to believe that your RPE may be a bit off. Typically LT on the Borg scale is about 15, which should also be about the same point as your VT. I would suggest retaking the test in a week to 10 days and also begin at a slower speed. By way of example: I begin my protocol at 6.3-6.5 mph (9:13min/mile) but my run LT pace isn't hit until 8.3mph (7:14min/mile).

A few questions:

1. Did you do the 4 minute protocol?

2. Did you have someone observe your breathing while taking the data?

3. Did they determine this VT or was it you?


Edited by Steve- 2004-12-09 8:30 PM

I suggest you do the 4 minute protocol (at least do a 3 minute protocol) because it takes more than 1 minute for your heart rate to settle into an increased speed.

Also, you can determine your own VT but also have the person recording the data (maybe someone else besides the receiptionist) continue to take note of your breathing and then you can compared when you think you reached your VT and when they think you reached it.

Do you mean to say that V02 max is a non-trainable thing? Or did you mean to say that Max HR is a non-trainable thing? Or both?