Why you need to know your anaerobic threshold

Have you considered having any metabolic testing done?

If so, it's not just your VO2 max you should be looking at if you're going to get any metabolic tests.

For those who don't know, VO2 max is essentially how big your engine is, or how much oxygen you can consume and utilise every minute. Although this is a good marker for endurance performance, it is not the only thing you want to be looking at. One of the most important things to consider is something called your ventilatory threshold, or anaerobic threshold as most people know it as.

Your anaerobic threshold, often used interchangeably with your lactate threshold is a point or an intensity where you can just about use or clear the lactate you are producing. You can normally sustain this intensity for about 30 to 60 minutes depending on how well trained you are. Elite athletes can hold this intensity for longer. This is also the point where 100% of your energy is now coming from carbohydrates.

What happens if you start going above this intensity?

If we start exercising above this intensity, so if you're going to run faster or increase the wattage on the bike, you begin to produce more lactate than you can recycle or get rid of. This build-up leads to disturbances in the muscle and reduces muscle contraction, subsequently causing a drop in performance.

Essentially above this point you will have to slow down quickly!

The reason why knowing your anaerobic threshold is so important, is because if you're running, cycling, or competing in a CrossFit™ workout that is particularly long, you want to know what intensity NOT to go above if you want to sustain that effort. For example, if you know that your anaerobic threshold is 175 beats per minute, you can make sure that you stay around or under this point so you don't red zone and hit a wall by going any harder.

Once we know this point, we can train to push it higher, meaning that you can run for faster, and for longer!

We can also detect exactly what heart rate, speed, or wattage you need to work at to bring about the desired results from your training. Essentially taking the guesswork out of your training.

How to calculate your Anaerobic Threshold

If you want to know your anaerobic threshold, you can base it off your max heart rate, however, this can vary from 70-90% because there's so much variance between individuals. This is the reason why VO2Max testing can be so beneficial. You're not just working out your VO2 max, pinpointing your heart rate training zone, but also identifying anaerobic threshold. This can have a huge impact on not just your training, but also your competition performance as well.

If you were interested to have this done, then make sure you check us out at www.boxnutrition.co.uk/metabolic-testing and book your test in now.