[LM]

I have done a few aerobic heart rate drift tests as described in detail in your running training plans and website articles. These tests were done on a treadmill with a 2% grade. Listening to a few of your podcast episodes it came to my attention that an athlete’s Aerobic threshold heartrate might be very different for flat running vs uphill hiking. This leads me to two questions:

1)      In general, would you expect to see your aerobic threshold heart rate (with a test done on a Stairmaster or 15% grade treadmill) to be LOWER, HIGHER, or the SAME as your Aerobic threshold heart rate (with the test done on a 2% grade treadmill)?

2)      My most recent tests Aerobic threshold test was done at a 2% grade and found to be 157 BPM. Is it “safe” to do my uphill or stair climbing zone 2 workouts right below 157 BPM or do I really need to retest to find my “Uphill” Aerobic threshold separate from my “flat running” aerobic threshold?

Thanks for the help and all the great content you put out!

[Scott Johnston]

AeT can vary depending on grade.  The only way to know is to test.  I’m not sure why this happens.  My theory is that it is combo of femur length and leg strength.  Those with long femurs tend to see a bigger difference as the hill steepens.  They will often be fast up until some critical steepness and then boom, they see a non-linear increase in HR as the grade goes up.  We often test both and I would say we see something like 50% of runners have a pronounced non linear increase in HR to grade at some point.  This happens at lower grades with those with long femurs.

Scott

[olesensa]

Hi Scott. On this same topic.

I was just listening to the March podcast and you mentioned this same idea of testing AeT on a stair machine.

Is the basic procedure the same for conducting the test as the Indoor treadmill version just sub in the stair machine?

[Seth Keena]

Yes, the procedure is the same. Stairmachines have fewer speeds to choose from relative to treadmills so finding the correct starting speed may be more of a challenge.

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