[killfatmike]

I am 52 years young avid rock climber. I haven’t done any structured cardio but I do climb outside(2 days per week with approaches of 15-30m each way) and do easy hikes once per week. I would like to improve my speed and endurance for long days in the mountains(ie Mt Whitney this summer, multi-pitch routes with longer approaches/walk-offs here in Vegas).

I used the Maffetone formula(180-52-5=123) to get a starting point for a treadmill HR drift test. After warming up and testing different speeds I went with 15% grad at 2.3mph. My first half averaged HR~124 and my second half averaged HR~135 for a 8.9% drift. This leads me to believe that my Aet is something below 123, and that I need to repeat the test.

http://tpks.ws/PQPIVIT3LWZIRTI2Q76QKOED7I

1)Am I doing this right?

2)test again with a slower pace – maybe 15% @2.1mph? Or take another 5 off my MAF and try to find pace for HR~118 while warming up?

3)How fit am I? I am just curious if there are any good benchmarks as I have no idea where I stand.

Thanks

• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by killfatmike.

[Scott Johnston]

Thanks for writing in with your questions.

If you didn’t change the speed or grade during your test it is likely that your AeT is below 123.  What was your perceived level of exertion?

Based on what you have said I would try to retest at 15% and 2mph.

Fitness is relative. And comparisons to others are futile.  Unless you are planning to compete, what matters is comparison with yourself.

Based on the information that you gave: 2x/wk of 1-2 hours total time hiking to and from climbs and one 1/week easy hike (maybe 1-2 hours??)  you will want to increase the time spent hiking on the great terrain you have around LV if you want to build fitness for long days in the Sierra and Red Rocks.  Duration is the single biggest stimulus for increasing aerobic capacity.  There is a lot upside potential for you in this regard. we generally advise that if you are targeting a goal of many hours in one day, like Whtiney you should be able to comfortably handle that many hours of steady movement in one week and be able to do do this frequently.  This is not to say you could not climb Whitney now.  But could you do it quickly without making it a sufferfest?

Training for endurance is a process and results take consistency over many months and years to bring big changes. But those changes are available to all of us if we choose them.

I hope this helps.
Scott

 

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by Scott Johnston.

[killfatmike]

Yes, you are correct I did not change the speed during the test.

My easy hikes are typically 2-3 hours with lots of rests/stops/slow pace as my girlfriend isn’t as fit and likes to birdwatch and stop for lunch. So my HR is mostly sub z1 on these days.

My perceived exertion was on the high side(8/10), especially in the last 15 minutes of the test. I don’t think I could nose breathe, and if I were carrying on a conversation it would have been with some broken phrases. I was breathing with a steady rhythm and suspect that with a short break for food/h20 I could have forced myself to keep going. But I may not be judging any of this well since as I am many years removed from serious cardio training.

I like your rule of thumb that I need to get 12 hours/per week of steady movement to be ready to do 12-hour days. Even though I “trained” an average of 15 hours/week last year most of that time was spent standing around the crag/climbing/weightlifting. I am only getting 4-5 hours per week of steady movement and a lot of that is at z1 and below.

I will re-test as you suggest.

Thank you for your reply. I am looking forward to the book discussion book.

[Rachel Roberts]

I have another question about the HR drift test. If I need to repost on a new thread, I’ll do that. I thought it might be easier to find for other folks if the questions were in one place.

I did the treadmill test last week and started with a bpm of 129 and got a heart rate drift of +2.3%. Today I retested starting at 134 and got a negative result.

136 was my average for the first half and 135 was my average for the second. I did have to switch treadmills 10 minutes in because the treadmills at my gym shut off after 60 minutes. It took awhile for my heart rate to stabilize after I switched over so I started the test at 18 minutes instead of 15, and then had to end it at 70 minutes because the second treadmill started shutting off (so about 52 minutes total of testing). I had the treadmill at 15% grade and 2.9 mph for the first test and 15% and 3 mph for the second test. The first test seemed like a sustainable level of effort (as in, I could have kept going) and the second seemed hard (as in, I occasionally was breathing hard and I was glad when it was over). Any suggestions from where to go from here? Try to go even higher? Thanks!

[killfatmike]

I tested again today(15%@2.0mph) as you suggested.  This time I got a drift of ~3.4%.  I felt like I could maintain nasal breathing as long as I focused on it, and the RPE felt more like a conversation pace than last time, but I did notice a bit of fatigue start to build in the last 5-10 minutes.

If I understand this right this means the top of my Z2 is the “starting HR for the test”.  My HR average from minute 5 to minute 10 was 115.  Giving me the following:

Recovery 88-104

Aerobic Capacity 103-115

Anaerobic Threshold 116-?(haven’t done the anaerobic test yet)

Does this look right?

As someone new to structured CV training should I test again in a month or two?

 

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by killfatmike.

[killfatmike]

I just did the Anaerobic test modified to 20m on a stair mill.

I did a 15m warmup and then took a few-minute break to drop a layer and have some water.  I was pleasantly surprised that breathing, not quad burn was my limiting factor.  Maybe my muscular endurance is ok.  I bounced between L5/6 and managed 65 floors climbed.

Looking at the data I noticed that it took my HR 5-6 minutes to fully ramp up.  If I use the entire 20m test my AnT=135.  If I use the last ~15m(after my HR ramped up) I get an AeT=139.  Which should I use?

[Scott Johnston]

Sorry Folks;

I was busy with some other writing projects like this article https://evokeendurance.com/training-fast-twitch-and-slow-twitch-endurance-athletes/.

@ Rachel:  I suspect the root of the problem is that you changed treadmills mid-test.  Treadmills, unless they are of laboratory quality like the Woodway are notorious for being inaccurate and inconsistent.  Here is an article I wrote about this last fall https://evokeendurance.com/treadmill-season/. I suggest doing your warm-up and test on the same treadmill to minimize this problem. Stop then restart the t-mill after your warm-up, so you get an hour of test data. However, if you only can capture 45 min of test data, you will still get a decent idea of the drift.  I hope that helps.

@ kilfatmike: Both these tests sound like they were well done, and you have interpreted the AeT test data well.  I’d use the 139 as the AnT because of the shorter test and the slower HR ramp-up.  Good job.

Thanks to both of you for writing in. I will review testing in-depth on the Book Group monthly zoom meetings, so don’t miss that.

Scott

 

[killfatmike]

Thanks for taking the time to answer 🙂

[Author]

Posts