Tracking your Training Effect
Part 1: Sustainable Power
If you are training for an upcoming event, competition, or any challenging physical pursuit then the benefits from evaluating your training effect should not only be understood but should remain in the forefront of your plans. As many coaches have often remarked “you won’t know where you are going until you know where you’ve been”. By tracking not only the training you accomplish but also the effect from that training, it can make all the difference to your potential for success. It doesn’t matter whether that success is measured by a personal best or just finishing strong in the event or quest. Regularly inserting a performance test into your training plans is essential to keeping you on the safe, efficient and most EFFECTIVE track in your training.
There are many types of fitness tests that help you monitor your training. Some are more general tests to evaluate your overall health and fitness while others are very specific and intended to describe the outcomes that directly affect the result of the event or challenge. Athletes or individuals who intend to participate in short events, like sprinting, combative sports (i.e., MMA), downhill skiing, or ball games will benefit most from tests that evaluate more short burst power, functional strength, anaerobic endurance (max effort for a few minutes), and skill levels. On the other hand for those individuals who are preparing for longer events requiring sustaining their efforts for more than a few minutes, possibly even hours, will need to be evaluated more importantly for their stamina and endurance, and more specifically their sustainable power.
We are going to define sustainable power as the mechanical output generated from a culmination of the body’s ability to generate and sustain energy (metabolic pathways) with an enhanced muscular efficiency (neuromuscular adaptations). The mechanical output can be measured as wattage (bike, row), pace (run, walk) or level (elliptical, stair-climber, etc).
In Part 1 of tracking your Training Effect endurance is the focus. Here I am going to discuss a few ways you can evaluate how effectively your endurance level is progressing. However, testing is not as easy as it sounds. One difficulty is that when describing sustainable power we often are really talking about a target value that needs to be defined further according to the duration of the endurance event. Some endurance events are considerably longer or shorter than others. Thus, the test for training effect should be sensitive to those differences. For example, your “sustainable pace” is quite different in a 10K run (just over or under an hour) than it would be on the run portion of the Ironman Triathlon (3-5 hours). Testing would have to assess the intensity for which you will be sustaining. Essentially, we rely on different energy systems less or more heavily depending on the length of the event. For example, one performance field test used to evaluate endurance athletes is the 20-30 minute functional threshold test (FTT) or the functional threshold power or pace (FTP) test. This test is essentially a time trial (TT) in which you would be required to run or ride for a 30 minute time period at your fastest pace or highest speed possible. From this test we can determine your FTT along with your functional threshold heart rate (FTHr) which is a fair prediction of your lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR). This FTHr is the heart rate that represents the pace or speed (FTP) that is at the lactate threshold (LT). The FTP test is a good predictor of the training effect in events that are less than an hour or two in duration. However, if you try to rely on this 30 minute time trial to evaluate your preparation for a marathon you would be missing critical information on how well you have developed the energy systems required to keep you going for more than an hour at speeds that are often well below the LT.
A better test to evaluate your progress for the longer course event is to determine your training effect at a sub-threshold pace. One way to do this is to evaluate your pace changes at a controlled heart rate that is below the LT. This will require that you first conduct the FTT (FTT tool click here) to determine your FTHr or better yet get into the performance lab to participate in a lactate threshold test to determine you actual LTHR. Once you have your LTHR or FTHr then you can conduct another sub-threshold field test on another day. This sub-threshold test can be a run for 1 mile or a bike for 6 miles at a speed or pace that stays at 10 beats lower than the FTH. You can then use the average speed for that distance as your benchmark to evaluate your long course sustainable pace (LCSP) changes. As speed improves at the same heart rate you can be confident that you are increasing your sustainable long course pace.
If you would like to evaluate your sustainable power The Fit Stop Human Performance lab can provide this testing in a laboratory setting with analyzers that will not only provide your LTHR but will also identify your ability to burn fat and spare carbohydrates (long course priority) as well as provide insights into your unique physiology that can be used to help you reach your endurance potential.
However you decide to evaluate your training effect try to do it regularly. How you feel about your training (good or bad) or feeling strong as you push one of your tempo runs is not always a good indicator of how well your training is going. Be sure to test your training effect regularly and insure that you are training most effectively and with the ability to Finish Strong in your event.
To your continued great health,
