I found this interesting …
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I like that site, and Lactate.com is another great treasure trove of info. The website you linked follows Mader’s ideas on VO2Max/VLaMax balance and interaction.
More of Mader’s ideas. As popularized by Jan Olbrect:
https://lactate.com/lactate_threshold.html
I just finished up my testing week since I’ve been off the bike for a few months and part of my test suite is the ramp test and 15-20 second max sprint to measure VLaMax. Then I use Mader (1986) and Hauser (2014) to estimate MLSS.
I also do 3point CP testing with a 1-, 4-, 10-minute time trials to get a good CP estimate. I only monitored breath data and muscle oxygen for the CP testing.
After CP testing, I did a time trial at CP and monitored breath data, muscle oxygen, and blood lactate every few minutes.
The algorithm for Mader’s model is quite easy to implement. I have it in Excel and Python. However, determining VLaMax from power only is dubious.
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how are your fingers or ear lobes after so many pricks during the CP test ?!
I have spent times trying to understand the interaction between VLaMax and “CP” and I don’t understand or see good proofs of the reality of these concepts. Have you found some way to move the needle in a profitable direction for your races or endeavors ?
Also, do you have help for the VLaMax test ? because so many pricks in such a short timeframe seems not easy or at least fragile (unless you have already a cannula in a vein and someone drawing the blood easily)
thanks
For CP testing, I don’t use blood lactate. I just collect VO2, VCO2, RER, tidal volume, etc. (metabolic cart) and muscle oxygen from Moxy. I’m not too concerned with lactate levels after the all-out efforts so that saves me some finger pricks. Eventually I’ll take lactate measurements for the all-out efforts when I keep learning more about lactate kinetics.
However, for the VLaMax test, I use anywhere from 6-8 points, so I typically do two pricks per finger (doing each finger once and then making a new puncture at least 5-7mm away from the original puncture). Here’s the data from my VLaMax test last weekend. This is data from a 15-second sprint effort.
Or during the CP time-trial, I try to take a lactate measurement every 5 minutes or so (about 6-7 measurements), but I’m doing this by myself, so it’s challenging to take a quality sample during a CP-level effort.
Here’s a shot of my spreadsheet for MLSS calcs.
Eventually I want to start a training club in my area so I can perform these assessments on other athletes and have some help with my own tests!
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Roxy approximates theses datas from muscle oxygenation ?
I guess you derive your VO2max from your VLaMax and CP measurements according to Maders’ math ?
I guess you took a measurement at rest and before the effort ? So it takes roughly 5 minutes for you to reach peak BLa ?
Moxy gives some additional data, but there’s no compelling research yet on threshold detection with muscle oxygen. I find that you need to use 2-3 Moxy sensors to be able to see how the whole body oxygen supply is behaving during maximal tests. For example, the leg muscles will dexoygenate during exercise, but a non-working muscle (e.g. the lower back muscles, triceps, deltoid) will only start to deoxygenate when the body is no longer in a quasi-steady state, or above “threshold”.
I measured VO2Max with my metabolic cart and you can also estimate it from the last minute power from the ramp test. For VLaMax, I take a lactate measurement after 2-3 minutes of rest (no pedaling) for the pre-sprint measurement. Then I take lactate measurements the first minute and every couple of minutes after the sprint, until I get a good curve.
For MLSS, I use Mader. You need a ramp test and sprint test.
For CP, I use Golden Cheetah and a spreadsheet by Dr. Phil Skiba. 1, 4, and 10 minute time-trials.
For FTP, I use WKO5. I use the same data from CP testing to establish FTP, FRC, Pmax, etc.
Then I try to verify by doing a minimum 30-minute effort at CP.
Yesterday I did a CP time trial at the CP estimate from the 1, 4, and 10 minutes max efforts (215 watts). The CP time trial was 31 minutes to exhaustion. During the time trial, I was at VO2 steady-state according to my metabolic cart (and between ~1.02-1.08 RER), but my blood lactate was increasing the entire test. I think my MLSS (or FTP) is 10-15 watts lower than CP. I’ll need to do another time trial at ~200 watts to see if lactate becomes steady.
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wow ! not everybody has access to a metabolic cart ! I love you way you experiment, I was kinda doing the same sort of things before Covid destroyed my racing endeavors… cf blood and tears – hic et nunc
I am very fortunate to be able to own a metabolic cart to use for training and experiments at home. I invested in a metabolic cart, 3 Moxy’s, and a blood lactate kit just because I am curious about my body and performance (even though I am so very average). I actually spent less on the metabolic cart and Moxy’s than some athletes spend on their bicycles, so I feel it has been a worthwhile endeavor. I still have so much to learn.
I am an engineer by trade and a scientist at heart, so I love collecting data. My current metabolic cart is pretty good, but I would not consider it “laboratory” grade. However, it does seem to provide reasonable data and I’ll soon start adding some additional quality control checks to my routine to try to get the best data.
I guess I should start a blog like you so I can share my experiences and data.
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Anyone know if this is going to work / be available soon?
Hi David.
There’s also a new product in the market.
https://graspor.com/?v=dd65ef9a5579
It monitoring oxygen in muscle and according to the website it’s not necessary to do lactate testing anymore.
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Interesting
Yeah, that is just a muscle oxygen device like Moxy.
Humon Hex and BSX Insight both tried to claim that you could detect threshold with SMO2. Neither of those devices exist anymore. Could be that both Hex and Insight didn’t perform well.
As someone who collects both SMO2 and blood lactate data, I don’t think SMO2 will replace lactate testing. Not for a while, anyways.
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it’s been a long time I have been monitoring this without seeing it released… keep pricking ! ouch !
Continuous lactate measurement …
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continuous ketones … rolling eyes +++
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Hi GarageLab,
How did you get those graphs about VO2Max and VLaMAx?
I try to get that graphs with the formulas that are reported in Article “A Theory of the Metabolic Origin…” of Mader and Heck but I’m always missing something.
Can you help me, please?
Check out Hauser 2014 - calculated vs experimental power paper. They describe the formulas to prepare the graphs and the constants used.
There’s also this python notebook that will give you an idea of how to perform the calculation. I just used LibreOffice Calc/Excel because I’m more familiar than Python. Python is the more elegant solution in my opinion.
Once you figure out the equations from Maders 1986 paper, you can expand and tackle his 2003 paper that I believe is part of the basis of Inscyds metabolic simulator. That one is taking me a while.
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Thanks!