Assessing AnT test accuracy
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I’m working through the 24-week Mountaineering training plan and today, I did the AnT test in Week 5 (following a recovery week). I picked a local trail that was ~20% grade, but the TH was closed due to chainsaw work so I ended up going to a nearby trail that was 15% grade. I followed instructions well, was well rested and fueled, and after the 15 minute warm up, I went as fast as I could sustain uphill for 30 min with a running cadence.
My average heart rate for the 30 minute test was 156 bpm, with a minimum of 149 and maximum of 160. So it would seem my AnT is ~156 bpm.
The part that is tripping me up is that I have two efforts in 2023 where I had a significantly higher average HR over 30 minutes:
- July 2023: I did a fitness test hike uphill with a 30# pack and had a 30 min average of 162 bpm. Prior to the July 2023 effort, I had been in a phase of weekend warrioring with longer efforts on Sat/Sun and minimal/no aerobic exercise during the week.
- January 2023: I did a 45 min mostly flat run where my last 30 min average HR was 159 bpm. Prior to this effort, I had done virtually no exercise for a month due to life events.
When setting my zones in the context of this data, would you advise using only the AnT test results I did today, or should I consider re-doing an AeT test, perhaps after the next recovery week? My AeT from the HR drift test is 143 so if today’s AnT test is accurate I will be substituting Z2 work with Z1 more often moving forward, with a difference of 8% between the two points.
Anecdotally, I have noticed over the last 6 months that my resting HR has dropped by ~10 bpm, and my AeT was also ~7 bpm lower than it had been in the past, though my pace at AeT has improved.
This is a great question! Although it is curious your tests from earlier this year gave a different reading would say for at least an uphill effort this is your current anaerobic threshold. It is not uncommon to see slightly different results for an AnT test uphill versus on the flats. The fact that your resting HR is lower, and your AeT is lower makes me think having a lower AnT is not unusual. Especially compared to the test where you hadn’t trained in a month. You are probably carrying a little more training load even coming off a recovery week which will suppress your HR a little bit. All in all, this is GREAT news because this means you do not have ADS (aerobic deficiency syndrome) and as you said your aerobic days should be in zone 1 or low zone 2. You could re-test and you may see something slightly different, our heart rates do vary day to day as we are humans and not machines but I would not expect it to change very much at all. I am happy to hear the training is working, keep it up!
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