question for experienced runners

hound dog

Hi, last Sunday I swam 3k did a spinning class and some gym work. One of the instructors at our local gym was testing peoples fitness by putting them on treadmill and raising incline x2 every minute.

After all I had done, I lasted 8mins.



I had a good sleep last night and only went to a studio weights class before I went to gym full of confidence Id beat last weeks time......wrong!

6 1/2 minutes!!!! I was very disappointed and a little embarrased. Any reason why this happened? anybody?

jonE

Hi Hounddog,I am quite sure some sports physioligist will give you an outstanding explanation,but it could be something as simple as your body not being ready and warmed up.If you wear a heartrate monitor when you go running ,for the first 5mins or so when you start of your heartrate goes almost/if not anaerobic ,this is normal and then settles down as you get into the stride,you feel weak first then start to get stronger as the run progresses.By doing all the exercise before the test last sunday your body was ready.Try it again except go for a 15/20 min light run beforehand and see if it makes a difference.

Heart rate increases in direct proportion to work rate until it reaches the crossover point from aerobic to anaerobic this is the ideal heart rate to work at for endurance running(so I am led to believe).If you have a HRM next time you do the test make a note of your heart rate against work rate/Speed/watts put the results on a graph and you should be able to find the point of inflextion where heart rate ceases to be proportional to work rate this is known as the Conconi test.Hope this totally confuses or helps.

hound dog

Thanks for that jon.E, the first part definetly helped, the second part bamboozled me! LOL. I will keep a closer eye on hrm and try the same test after a light run.

jonE

Hounddog do not be confused it is an excellent test to determine heart rates and a lot more accurate than using 220-age etc try this web address

www.geocities.com/HotSprings/3257/conconi.html

Algarni

Thanks for that JonE.



That is one of the simplest explanations of the Conconi test I have seen and exactly what i have been looking for.



That is the same test we do in Sports Science at college level but we do it on the turbo trainer increasing resistance every 3 minutes. I almost died the first time I did it but it gave an accurate reading of my VO2max without spending loads of money in a lab.

hound dog

I'll second that. Great explanation and link. cheers.