Testing, testing

On the 21st October I became a human Guinea Pig for an hour as I got my VO2 Max, Lactate Threshold and heart rate zones tested at the Sport Science department of Bangor University, as part of a Masters teaching session. Dr Stewart Laing was looking for people to test in order to show his masters students how it's done. This would usually cost over £150 so I was well up for it!

Before:still smiling

A persons VO2 Max is basically the amount of oxygen your body can take in at maximum exertion. It undermines your athletic potential and is thought to be largely genetic. The higher your VO2 max, ultimately the faster you will go. Lactate threshold is the point at which your body starts producing so much lactic acid that you get that nasty burning feeling in your muscles which causes them to stop working properly and slow you down. Lactate threshold is measured in terms of heart rate usually, so I if a persons Lactate threshold was at 90% of their max heart rate, they will be faster than someone with the same VO2 max but a lactate threshold of only 80% max heart rate. Overall these two factors affect how fit and how fast you are/could be.

 During: left; starting to feel the burn right; getting blood lactate tested

The testing was done on a static bike. I had a wear a mask which was hooked up to a machine that examined the amount, and composition of the air I was breathing in and out. The way the test worked was I started on a fixed resistance of 135watts, warmed up on that for 5 minutes and then from then on the resistance increased by 35watts every 3 minutes. As well as this, at each 3 minute interval I had to have blood samples taken from my finger tips with these little pin gun things. They don't hurt but by the end my hands were pretty bloody!

Left: Reaching the end, legs feeling like lead.  Right: Game over, looking wrecked, feeling wrecked.

The test continued getting harder until I couldn't keep going any longer, so as you can imagine it was pretty damn hard, but the efforts should be rewarded with some useful data that can help with my training. I get my results sometime next week, I'll probably post them on here unless it turns out I have the power and fitness of a guinea pig, if that's the case I'll take up twitching, or trainspotting, or tweeting?