[Nolan312]

Hi all. For background I’m 27, male, 6’2″, 190lbs. I’ve just read Training for the Uphill Athlete for the first time and have started the 16 week off-season ski plan. I’ve never done structured endurance training before but have a strong ski-touring and strength training background. I have just completed the testing week (first time ever doing these tests) and the results of the AeT and AnT tests have given me essentially the exact same heart rate, so I want to understand where I might have gone wrong, as presumably it would be extremely unlikely that physiologically they would be the same. Here are the details of the tests I’ve done:

 

AeT Test: I did the outdoor test running on a very flat course (5m elevation gain/loss) as I find treadmills incredibly mind-numbing. I targeted 155bpm as this is where I found I could no longer sustain nose breathing in my runs/hikes previously. After warmup my heart rate settled at 155bpm at an ~5:30min/km pace. I tried to keep this heart rate as stable as possible as I ran for the next 60mins (range was 150-160bpm, but overall very stable around 155) and TrainingPeaks measured my Pa:Hr at 2.76%. I thus assumed I had undershot and that my AeT was about 160bpm, which I set as the top of my zone 2.

 

AnT Test: I also choose to do this outside, on a steep hill. I went to the steepest trail I could find, which TrainingPeaks measured as a 27% grade. I warmed up gradually over 15 minutes to 155bpm, then went as hard as I could for 30 minutes, ending up with 442m of elevation gain over the 30mins. This was a very hard effort. At around 15 minutes into this effort I noticed that my legs (particularly my calves and slightly my quads) became very fatigued and my effort became limited by my leg fatigue rather than my cardio, my breathing slowed and my heart rate began to drop, but this still was as fast as I could manage. My average heart rate for this 30mins ended up being 161bpm (range 150-169bpm), so essentially the same as what I thought my AeT was…

 

This has obviously left me a little confused as what to do going forward from here, as I assume one of the two estimates must be wrong. A couple of things I was wondering:

1) For the AnT test did I choose too steep of a grade for my current level of muscular endurance? My legs were definitely the limiting factor. Would repeating this test on a lower grade (say 15-20%) give me a better result?

2) Alternatively, for the AnT test did I simply just start the test at too fast of a pace? Should I just repeat it on the same steep trail but with a slower initial pace as to not blow myself up 15 minutes in?

3) Alternatively, could my AnT estimate be correct and my AeT for training with vertical gain is significantly lower than for running on the flats? I find my RPE is roughly equivalent for the same heart rate in the 150-155ish range during my previous uphill hikes and flat runs however. Should I just suck it up and do both tests on a 15% incline treadmill to standardize the results?

Thanks for the advice.

-Nolan

[Scott Johnston]

Nolan:

Thanks for writing in with these questions and welcome to Evoke Endurance.  I understand your confusion and hope to clear things up a bit.

It is common but not universally true that the AeT HR will differ between uphill and flat running or hiking. We normally suggest testing both, hence the treadmill to see if you need to adjust for hilly terrain outside.

Next thing:  You have heard me say that local muscular fatigue is what slows us in longer harder efforts.  That is true for beginners and pros.  It is what determined the AnT not the heat’s ability to deliver O2 since this is a submit effort.  What I mean by that is that a max effort can only be sustained for a few of minutes. That’s when the cardiac output becomes the limiter.

Similarly the gradient will affect the AnT test because you will be recruiting more muscle mass, and more forceful muscle fibers that are not as well aerobically conditioned.  On a steep grade like 27% this effect is very likely to rear its ugly head.  I recommend doing this test  on a grade that is close to the what you normally train on, go out a bit easier and pick up the pace later if you feel you can manage that.  And get a really good warm up.

Steep uphill training is fantastic for building muscular endurance which will directly improve your uphill AnT.

I doubt very much that your AeT and AnT are stacked right on top of one another like you are inferring from these tests.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Scott

 

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