A true survival LBP test 18-10-08

[Robh]

A true survival LBP test 18-10-08

This morning's LBP test for Sean Hogan was an interesting one and forced me to use my brain.

Here's my account and hopefully Sean will chip in.

As with all tests I send out a questioniare to the person beforehand to ask their age, height, resting HR, highest HR seen, Hr zones & avg HR on long steady rides. I use some of the information for the Polar fit test and to gauge how high their HR would likely be at a perceived effort of 8 when fully rested. For Sean he had told me the highest HR he had seen was 195, so bear this in mind for later.

His test began this morning @ 9am after catching the train down to me. Everything was going fine had a few tiny niggles with the Powertap loosing signal which was due to the shape of his bike seat stay as the receiver was moving around a tiny bit but I sorted this out. Then the Bioharness needed a bit of tinkering about as HR, respiratory rate & skin temp readings were all way too low. So a quick go on me and the readings were fine so refitted the belt on Sean in a slightly higher position. Now this makes a change as the last few occasions the oximeter has had trouble getting an oxygen saturation figure from people with cold hands.

As usual I started Sean @ 100 Watts for 3mins and in the last 15-30 secs was taking readings for HRV, HR, RPE, Watts, Spo2, Respiratory Rate before moving up 20 Watts.

By 160 Watts everything was fine however I did notice beforehand @ 140W his cadence had gone from 70 to 85rpm and was now back to 70rpm. I had asked Sean earlier before the start of the test what was his preferred cadence was and he said it was around 70rpm. During the test you need to stay with +/-5rpm. The consequence of riding higher can mess up the HR and respiratory readings so I asked him to repeat the test again but @ 140W and stick to 65-75rpm as best as possible. What I had noted the HR @ 140W and 160W was 135bpm & 136bpm. When he redid the test starting @ 140W it was now 128bpm.

After that tiny hiccup I noticed Sean's perceived effort was now getting very high for the HR's I thought would have been lower. At 160W/135bpm he was already at level 7. Now that can't be right I thought to myself and questioned him but said to me he was pretty sure it was correct.

At target 180 Watts he was down 10 watts, perceived effort was still 7, target 200W was 201W, perceived effort was again 7. Now the next 20 Watts ramp Sean started to have difficulty hitting the watts I wanted him to target. By the time we were aiming for 240 Watts he was 27 Watts down and his perceived effort was 8/9, HR 157.

Remember earlier when I said the highest HR he had seen was 195 from the people I've tested so far and with my own HR around that figure, I was expecting Sean to get up to 180-190. But today it was not to be on the first part of the LBP test so the first lactate sample and 1 minute later his lactate was 2.2mmol.

Yes 2.2 mmol and that is not enough lactate to get the trend I look for. When someone has 4mmol I have to shorten the 2nd part of the test to catch the trend as the body will clear the lactate very very quickly compared to someone who has a lactate figure of 13mmol like Keith got or 8.8mmol like myself.

So with a reading of 2mmol and only top HR of 157 I started to ask Sean some questions like when did he last eat, when he last rode etc..There was nothing unusual there but he did say he did have a cold a couple of weeks ago. Umm...Was the Sean's brain protecting his body using the Central Governor model from the after affects of his cold?

So what do I do in this sort of situation? Tell Sean to finish the test and go home?

To prove the that this body could still create lactate I asked Sean to ride as hard as he could for 1 minute. Now usually the test does not push people this hard but I wanted to see if I could get a decent lactate reading. So Sean does his full on 1 min hard effort and this time HR is up to 175 and we have a lactate reading of 6.9mmol. Now that is much better!

With a much higher reading for lactate I'm now able to proceed doing the 2nd part of the test finding Sean's LBP.

Working my way up the HR's by 5beat increases every 4 minutes and taking lactate samples I found his LBP. I did notice he had trouble maintaining HR and a cadence. Was his co-ordination fatigued?

I would say it was a tough test for Sean and one I would like repeated again pretty soon so I can get his HR up using 3minute intervals and to get a better idea of his performance line/recovery line.

Thanks for coming down Sean and letting me post the details on here, you did well!

Rob

[Robh]

Sean's data :-

At HR 150 the ride in lactate is very small @ 0.1mmol and I would normally hold the person for another 4-5mins at this HR to see if lactate will rise even more. But as Sean was on a tight time scale and was finding it hard work at this HR (above his LBP) I finished the test but I did ask him first and explained the situation and he was happy with the conclusion.

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/Sean1.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/Sean2.jpg[/img]

[Robh]

Dam I knew I forgot something, sorry about the poster.

These are tests I learn form, if they were all easy I would bring my sofa in and put my feet up.

3 tests in one week with another 2 next week.

Rob

[Robh]

[quote="Sean Hogan - 何祥"]Rob, how do my stats compare then with Marky Marks? Were almost the same age, height and weight... I guess from the figures.

[Robh]

Sean,

During the 1min effort you hit a max of 475W.

Rob

[Juerg FaCT]

Hey Rob congratulation, you made the final exam.
FaCT is realy not a protocol, it is an assessment with a person with a brain behind and the ability to understand the physiological dynamic behind the whole testing idea.
Soon you can change the name to "Rob's bloody mess test RBMT)
Here a very short story from the exercise physiological congress in Banff Cdn ( and I will bring some very nice research on this forum as well from Australia ( in good english ) and other parts of the world.
Here a nice intro sentence from T. Noakes from Cape Town SA.
Classical testing needs no brain , neither from the client nor from the tester.
So his conclusion was :
Assessment of a brainless physiology. It was the start of a point to counterpoint presentation between the CGM ( central governor model ) and K .McIntosh's ( CDN ) peripheral governor model (PGM)
Noakes started with a very smooth comparison:
He had a Ferrary FI picture up there . He asked the question: how fast can this car go ?
Than he but a brain in the car . ( Driver ) So a Ferrary without driver was ????????
An athlete without brain is ????????
A training plan based on horse power is ????????
A training plan using a brain to control the horse power is ????????
Hmm just checking fast the space bar situation before I submit looks not too bad for the time of the day .

[Robh]

Sean,

I don't ususally do this but here's yours and Mark's performance lines :-

[img]http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t209/sbc205/Image2-3.jpg[/img]

[Robh]

With Sean's test not quite text book was a bit more easier to make observations :-

1. Heart rate at the end of the ramp test was around 20-30 beats down based on others I’ve tested with similar recorded high HR’s of 190-195. The low HR contributed to very low lactate value of 2.2mmol. After effects of cold holding you back?

2. Had to get you to do a full on 1 min effort to get HR up to produce more lactate. HR still a bit low would have expected it more closer to 195bpm. I did the same with Apples and he hit 196bpm which he has seen on the road.

3. Your breathing rates jump into the 40 breath per min mark very quickly, would benefit from practicing diaphragm breathing with deep breaths. Did after effects of your cold affect your breathing?

4. Avg cadence of 70rpm is low and would expect this from someone who's only just started riding. I know cadence is a personal thing and people ride at what they feel comfortable with.

5. In the 2nd part of the test where you had troubling holding HR and cadence I believe this imight be due to neurological fatigue. Andrew Sellars of FaCT-Education wrote this to me about your cadence :-

I would say your assessment of the neurological fatigue is spot on. Remember there are two ways to burn out the neurological system.
1) Ride high cadence for extended period of time.
2) Ride very low cadence with high wattage.

Both require thousands of signals form the brain to the skeletal muscle to continue the work. In the first case, the main limiting factor for most people is how quickly they can relax the quadriceps muscle and allow the upstroke to occur, rather than the ability to contract it quickly to develop the power as most people imagine. This is the cause of being hurled off the seat when trying to ride at a cadence above what you are used to. In the second example, after pushing with slow cadence, as you test subject chose to do, he is recruiting a higher percentage of muscle fibers on each rotation, and will run into trouble if expected to do this for a sustained duration of time.

6. LBP is 145bpm but it might be slightly higher because the last lactate number is only up by 0.1mmol which is not that high in terms of an increase. If you had the time I would have held you for another 4 mins @ HR 150 to see if your lactate number would have stayed the same or not, then decide if to go up another 5 beats. But I could see that you were finding the effort hard @ HR 150.

[Marky Mark]

Sean it looks like on paper we would be able to ride at a pace that isn't too far from each other.

Strange how you have more power than me but your LBP is lower, does that balance it out over a long distance?

Marky Mark

[quote="Sean Hogan - 何祥"]Rob, how do my stats compare then with Marky Marks? Were almost the same age, height and weight... I guess from the figures.

[Marky Mark]

I do have a few pounds to spare!

[Mike I]

I'm struggling to make much sense of any of this or to find the answer to the important question at the heart of Sean's test. Is he going to complete the 2009 Nove Colli or not?

[Snoop Doug]

[quote="Sean Hogan - 何祥"]I reckon I could complete the long course, I just need to convince the good Mrs H that the sun and italian food will be good her and little Victoria...and of course the shopping too.

[Robh]

[quote="Mike I"]I'm struggling to make much sense of any of this or to find the answer to the important question at the heart of Sean's test. Is he going to complete the 2009 Nove Colli or not?