If you want to get somewhere, you first have to know where you are. Wahoo Sports Scientist Jeff Hoobler and Neal Henderson put fitness testing through its paces. From the different types of testing to key strategies that will help you ace your next assessment.
Fitness testing is a critical component of training. The old adage is, if you want to get to your destination, you first need to know where you are. In this episode of The Knowledge, Wahoo Sports Scientists Jeff Hoobler and Neal Henderson put the subject of fitness testing through its paces. They'll explain the different testing protocols, both in the lab and in the field; dive into the complicated relationship many athletes have with testing and provide some key strategies that will help you ace your next fitness test. Time to cram.
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** Mentioned in this episode - Ep 19: https://the-knowledge-by-wahoo-sports-science.simplecast.com/episodes/it-takes-vo2-to-tango-demystifying-vo2-and-vo2max
** Mentioned in this episode - Ep 17: https://the-knowledge-by-wahoo-sports-science.simplecast.com/episodes/take-it-inside-the-ins-and-outs-of-indoor-trainers
Neal Henderson 0:00
Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Knowledge Podcast brought to you by Wahoo fitness. I'm Neal Henderson, head of Wahoo sports science.
Jeff Hoobler 0:07
And I'm Jeff Hoobler, coaching movement specialist with Wahoo. Today we're discussing fitness tests why they're important and when you should do them. We'll also talk a little bit about different types of tests, and when to choose which type of test. Here's a list of examples of tests. Not so exhaustive, but we've got full frontal.
Neal Henderson 0:29
Wait, wait, don't you get exhausted doing tests?
Jeff Hoobler 0:32
Maybe depends on which one?
Neal Henderson 0:34
Okay, sorry, I'm so sorry for interrupting you, man.
Jeff Hoobler 0:37
We'll keep on rolling. We got lactate threshold test vo two max tests Wingate test power profiling fat max test vertical jumps one repetition max test. We've even got the Presidential Fitness, physical fitness test and not to leave it out. We got a Rorschach test.
Neal Henderson 0:56
Jeff, I thought we were talking about tests specific to like cycling and performance and endurance and stuff.
Jeff Hoobler 1:02
Oh, yeah, I suppose we should narrow that down a little bit.
Neal Henderson 1:05
So just those last few we can take off.
Jeff Hoobler 1:07
Take those off.
Neal Henderson 1:09
All right, anything after say vertical jump?
Jeff Hoobler 1:11
Hmm, let's stick with the first few. It's gonna measure our physiological capacity for cycling.
Neal Henderson 1:19
Alright, well, Jeff and some others know that I'm pretty fond of using fitness tests, which I in fact like to call assessments rather than tests. Because I do know that there are folks out there who get test anxiety when you use the word test, they start freaking out, they start getting all stressed.
Jeff Hoobler 1:37
And I might be one of them. Haha, yeah,
Neal Henderson 1:41
I wasn't looking at you, Jeff, I was looking at you. But that makes me sad. Because like, a test isn't a bad thing. And assessment isn't a bad thing. And you shouldn't have extra anxiety or stress before doing your assessment. Because in fact, if you are suffering from that kind of excess stress, anxiety, your ability to perform during your assessment is going to be less than it would have been if you weren't quite so stressed out. So I like to use that word assessment. But yeah, I know, the test does make more sense for a lot of folks. So I'm not going to get too hung up on it. But
Jeff Hoobler 2:22
well, I think you're right, it's brief. But you know, it's easy to say that as coaches, we, you know, we know what we're looking for, we're looking for a little bit of insight, a snapshot of where people are, but from the other side, you know, it can be daunting, you know, I, when, when I know I have to do a test, things kind of get a little dark, you know, there's a little bit of fear coming in, knowing that there's going to be a pain, you just, you just know it. And I wouldn't go so far as to say I have PTSD from testing. But, those memories are pretty strong. And, you know, some of the other things that get in the way, when you're testing are, you know, the expectations that you have to hit certain numbers or be at a certain place. But you know, what I hear you saying is as we don't necessarily need to do that.
Neal Henderson 3:16
Yep. Yeah. And one thing I'd like to actually address a couple of your points there, Jeff, to help you and others number one, the darkness part of it. Yeah, I guess it's really like a, you know, used to say like, you know, going into the pain cave, you know, is one of those things and it's actually not a scary thing. It's like, you're able to explore and go to a new place. So actually, like, don't be afraid of that, like, go find a new feeling by pushing yourself in a way that you never have. That's where real life is happening. And when you're experiencing new things. So it's not darkness. It's actually the exact opposite which darkness is actually you know,
Jeff Hoobler 3:53
so it's okay to go to the darkness, but we don't have to associate fear with
Neal Henderson 3:57
the darkness. Exactly. Okay. Also, interestingly, I again, I really like to make this point that it's not necessarily pain that you're feeling there's discomfort, there's weight or sensations, these are significant sensations, but it's not pain. Pain to me is you are doing damage and injury there is form. That is a result of what's happened, whether it's a traumatic kind of thing or an excess of, you know, pressure jamming on you like that's pain, going and pushing yourself to your limit isn't pain. That's yeah, discomfort, but man, that's where the good stuff happens.
Jeff Hoobler 4:30
True, true. And I think if you hit on a really important topic, we need to reframe what we think of as pain. And
Neal Henderson 4:40
it's just this exercise-induced discomfort. It's okay. And we're in control. Exactly. When athletes have great performances. It's not because they didn't feel something in most cases, they've actually felt something worse than they've ever felt in that way, or more intense rather than worse. But that's allowed them to achieve something They had never done before.
Jeff Hoobler 5:01
Yeah, so it's a different way of looking
Neal Henderson 5:03
at it, for sure. And with that, you also have the kind of things you mentioned on expectations. And so again, a really important thing to keep in mind is when we are doing a test or an assessment, we're just trying to find out where you're at nothing more than that. It's not a judgment. And so anyone who has used has had tests or assessments used in that judgment realm potentially, have been an unfortunate victim of somebody using them for the wrong reason. So with great power comes great responsibility, right? Yeah. And so having somebody do some sort of a test or assessment, how you use that information, is really an important thing. And the way we think about it in what we do as coaches are that it's for me an assessment of where you are at, so I can help you get where you want to go. It's like when you turn on a GPS, you have to find where you're at before you can then load up a route to be able to get from point A to point B, a test is the same way. Where are you right now? What are your current abilities? And then let's make sure that we have appropriate progression based on where you're at to help you get where you want to go.
Jeff Hoobler 6:14
Right, right. I, you nailed it, right on the head there is, we have to know where we are so that we can create a map to get where we want to go. Yeah, and, you know, looking into the past isn't gonna help us. And you just need to find out where we are right now. So with that said, What do you think, are the most appropriate times to test?
Neal Henderson 6:37
Yeah, when you're beginning a new plan, or startup a season, or coming back to training from some time off, or the most is probably the most important time. With that in mind, though, it shouldn't be like the first thing you do, it's not like, Okay, I'm going to start a new plan tomorrow. And I'm just going to go and do my test on day one. And if I haven't been exercising for, you know, weeks or months, or something like that, so
Jeff Hoobler 6:59
we don't start out with full frontal,
Neal Henderson 7:01
not on day one, I would not recommend that as you're
Jeff Hoobler 7:06
probably not a nice welcome gift, if you're definitely
Neal Henderson 7:09
too much of a good thing is that too much. So you want to have, you know, at least, I would say generally close to a week of consistent training before you do any kind of testing. And in most cases, my preference is to have a full block of training, whether that's two or three weeks of training and rest before you do your test. Because you do want to come into it rested and motivated, not just, you know, again, fresh off the motivation, but a lot of people, you know, I'd say, at the beginning of the year, like okay, January one, I'm gonna be on Yeah, to tackle the world, and I'm ready to start and they just overdo everything, including like, Okay, I'm doing a test straightaway. And then that was a heavy load, and then they just go headlong into things rather than build up and be smart.
Jeff Hoobler 7:56
Yeah, yeah. And, well, there's a, there's a lot of things around going into that first test, but as you said, you want to have a little bit of riding on your belt. So your legs are fresh, but not, you know, completely rested. In, you know, we know a lot of times when you take a big block off, and you come back and try to do a test, you don't feel so great. So you know, getting some normal writing in is, is a good way to go there.
Neal Henderson 8:23
Definitely, another probably second most important time is after a block of training. And a lot of times that might be you know, a few months, three, four months and a lot of cases 1216 weeks to do like a full assessment, though, you can do some other kind of checkups in between, especially if you notice, like, for a given effort, you know, say a power target your heart rates a bit lower than it was, you know, a month earlier, well, you might need a little bit higher target. And you could do a little bit of a midway checkup through a training plan are, you know, after just a month of training, in some cases, you might see enough adaptation that you do need to kind of do a checkup. In that case, you don't have to do the exact same, you can do something that's kind of not maximal. And we have a couple you know, a couple of different ways around that. But looking at that power to heart rate, especially, especially for your kind of like steady-state targets, or FTP is definitely useful there. Or some cases you can just manually if you're using it as a training app, or if you're out and you have you know, a certain target set, you can just say, Well, let me just see, today, I'm going to go up, you know, 10 Watts higher. And if your heart rate is kind of hitting that normal level for that in your perceived effort is in line then hey, that's a good adaptation. Yeah, update your zones for that point.
Jeff Hoobler 9:40
Right. So you know, this test midway through a block where you're seeing big gains or significant gains, you know, it might be said that you've taken an extended period of time off or you're newer to training you're going to adapt fairly quickly. And so doing that mid-plan assessment is a really good thing to do.
Neal Henderson 10:02
Yeah, so those kinds of tests, you know, that kind of like a checkup, you know, in between could be, you know, for six, maybe eight weeks, between things. And we talked about some of the specific tests, we might recommend in that kind of interim, between like a full assessment. Another time that occasionally I'll have folks do tests is at the end of the season, and especially even after a good performance in that way. It's, it's really, you know, not necessary, but in some cases, it's nice to know what that capacity looks like in a test situation or assessment. After they've had a really good performance. I know, like, Okay, well, in training the next year, if you're getting close to that, from an assessment, like, hey, that capacity, you know, we know, you've been able to perform very well with this level of output, and that can just be helpful for building confidence and understanding.
Jeff Hoobler 10:50
Yeah, and I think, you know, that's something that is not done very often, where we, you know, we often finish the season with a peak event, whether it's a national or state race, or, you know, something on a bigger scale, and then we think, Okay, now I'm done. Right, but, you know, there, you've essentially attained the best fitness of your season, and be nice to know what
Neal Henderson 11:15
that is. Yep, exactly. And, you know, I've done some tests with athletes over time, actually, even the week of a race, you know, it's not the same, you know, we're not necessarily doing a series of maximal efforts in that kind of tests. But it might be a little bit of a checkup, sometimes something lab-based something field-based. In some cases, it's again, just getting some idea of what's going to be useful for that athlete for pacing, strategy, and or confidence. And those kinds of things. I mean, I myself actually did a test in the lab here, before led boat that along the Wednesday, I did the test in the lab where, you know, I just wanted to get an idea of energy expenditure and how much I needed to be eating and drinking, especially for my calorie use, because I had two really long back to back days, you know, 910 hour, back to back races fueling was a supercritical thing. And so I actually did some testing in the lab to be able to get some of that information.
Jeff Hoobler 12:06
Yeah, and those, you know, this is kind of off-topic there. But testing can be a really good training tool, as well. So, you know, sticking a test in there before an event like that it's not such a bad thing.
Neal Henderson 12:21
Yep, exactly. Get a little little bit of a run-through, get some effort in. And again, if you can get useful information out of it, that's going to help you a little bit of confidence, potentially, there you go. Now, it can backfire. I can tell you that, you know, so the wrong kind of test at the wrong time, can definitely take away that competence. And so, you know, just be reasonable, you know, you might want to try some things before a supercritical event. Personally, I've definitely done plenty of different tests before other lower priority events. So I knew kind of what I was,
Jeff Hoobler 12:52
Wow, that really surprises me out of it. Neil, I can't imagine that you do something like that. But let's talk about types of tests. You know, we've mentioned a whole list, of tests earlier, but more specifically, let's talk about, you know, lab tests versus field tests.
Neal Henderson 13:14
Yeah, from my background, you know, as a physiologist, and coach, I mean, a lot of, in a lot of cases, those two are always held very separately, that, as a sports scientist, everything has to be done in the lab. What? Exactly, absolutely. That's for sure. When I was first doing testing, that was the way it was man, pull science baby. And then coaches did stuff in the field. And they didn't talk to each other that in so many cases, there was like this separation of what happens in the lab is very important and very science. And then what happens when a coach that outside who cares like that, that's irrelevant to the lab, and the science. And we're definitely doing a lot more in bridging those two things together, and knowing that one informs the other. And so, with that in mind, some of our lab tests, we've actually started to take out into the field a little bit. In a lab, generally, we're going to be able to do more invasive measures. So things like where we're measuring oxygen consumption, or blood lactate concentration, or some of these other even more invasive things, core temperature, things like that have, again, historically been exclusively in the realm of a lab with very expensive equipment, and people that have a significant amount of training, training, to be able to utilize those instruments and have them calibrated and yada yada yada. Well, these days are some differences, right?
Jeff Hoobler 14:37
Yeah, we've got you to know, we've got power meters, we've got wearables, we've got all kinds of different ways to gather information. You know, it's, it's really changing what we can do for the athlete and give relevant information.
Neal Henderson 14:58
Exactly. And so you know, some of We're even taking some of those more almost, you know, invasive or, you know, more intensive tests, things like measuring vo two Max and actually being able to do that with a smaller device out in the field. So, you know, if you're looking for more information about something like vo two and VO two Max testing, you can listen back to Episode 19. First for some insight there, but those kinds of tests can now be basically done both in the lab as well as in the field. And what we're seeing is there are some differences. And indoor, what happens if you're on a stationary trainer versus when you're outside. And there are just some of those differences that are individual. And so assessing how somebody responds in one situation versus another is super important. So it's pretty exciting to see what kind of information we're gathering and, you know, a great example within the system, we've actually, you know, pool, we submitted some data for publication with 7000 Age match men and women, so 3500 Men 3500, women age-matched from age 20, through 69, and seen some of the differences that we see from field testing measures. So there's additional science that we're able to gather now from, you know, people collecting it basically, on their own, it's pretty,
Jeff Hoobler 16:17
it's pretty amazing, considering, you know, we had to be reliant upon, you know, the low numbers of lab testing, and usually university studies and that kind of thing. And now, with so much more information,
Neal Henderson 16:33
a lot of the historical lab data is basically either, you know, elite athletes, professionals, Olympians, or, you know, 20, some year old Exercise Science students who were coming into the lab and doing the study. And that's it. And there wasn't a whole lot in between and with what we have now, with portable power meters out in the field, as well as all these other wearables is, we're starting to see a lot more data from a much broader population base, which is really useful for the average person.
Jeff Hoobler 17:00
Yep. And bridging the gap and making it applicable. Yeah, so specifically, let's talk about a couple of types of tests. You mentioned the VO two max test. Let's talk a little about, you know, maximal efforts and power profiling and that kind of thing. Yeah,
Neal Henderson 17:25
so these are more examples of what we consider a field test that anyone can do if you have a power meter. Ideally, with a heart rate monitor, you're going to be able to gather a lot of information about yourself. And so the kind of maximal efforts, we typically call that, you know, power profiling, and in that regard, we're looking at power output across a range of different durations. So from short term, high energy, power output, sprint power, all the way up through longer sustained output. So more like an FTP. So, you know, there are different protocols that we'll talk about with those and different things that have been in place. But I think it's important when you consider field tests that you're not just looking at, like one power duration, you know, historically, in cycling, you know, 20, some years ago, the kind of standard was everyone did a 20-minute test, and you took 990 5% of that was, you know, the common, you know, that's your FTP. And, you know, back at that point, I was doing a lot of testing in the lab with athletes of a broad variety in and I was like, well, in some cases, yeah, that works like that. 95% of 20 minutes, bang on, good to go. But I saw a lot of people both higher and lower than those values from what we're doing in the lab and what they're capable of doing in terms of their actual power production. And so I was like, Alright, I think there's a little bit more to this. So looking across that continuum, is really helpful, because it tells us, not just that that one point of say FTP, but it tells us a little bit about relative strengths and weaknesses for a given athlete, especially when you take into account the context of what somebody is training for. So if you're doing an hour record on a track, well, it is a lot more related to FTP, of course, there's aerodynamics. There's pacing, there are a few other things, but by and large, kind of pretty well defined there. But if you're doing something like cyclocross racing or a gravel event, you know, cyclocross race that takes 30 or 40 minutes that's on-off maximal near maximal effort repeated, or that, you know, eight or 10-hour gravel race, totally different. You're not writing it FTP for that. So again, using that single point is not necessarily the most useful, and having a broader series of different efforts from that short, mid, and longer-term is going to give you better insight, information, and tracking how you're responding to the training that you're doing.
Jeff Hoobler 19:49
Yeah, and that 40 P profile we would call it is represented in the app as full frontal and You've been doing that for some
Neal Henderson 20:01
40 P stands for four-dimensional power for four different levels. So just
Jeff Hoobler 20:05
and, you know, it really is, I mean, we don't want to go too deep into 40 P right now, but it really does give you a great picture of what your rider type is, where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are, where you need to spend your time and that kind of thing, which is the information that we're looking for. And when we coach an athlete, to help them get better, because we want to create adaptations, right. And if we're not giving the right stimulus to create the adaptation, then we're kind of missing the mark.
Neal Henderson 20:37
Exactly. And so being able to do that, in one single session is kind of useful, you don't have to have multiple days of resting and testing, really one, one session, get all that information and move forward. So in addition to those four power targets, you also get a threshold heart rate and appropriate training heart rate zones, as well as you know, in our app, a rider type and or weakness, and so that that can inform you of how to be a better athlete with what you've gotten, where you're at. There were other types of tests that folks do, and in some cases, they don't have to be maximal efforts. So looking at holding a steady heart rate that is not maximum or not even a threshold and seeing what kind of power you can produce over a little bit longer period of time, can be a useful type of test. Interestingly, we've kind of put together an element of that, as well as a ramp test that is very common, actually, from lab days to two got sorry, to identify two different levels of our 40 PR, Max, aerobic power, and FTP, when when you do the half Monty test, basically an example of this, I started using this kind of an example, test as something to be used in between power profiling or full-frontal test with athletes. So where we do a one-minute ramp that you go till you can't. And then we hold a steady effort that's not even at FTP, it's below your FTP. And from that, we're able to get a more accurate calculation of FTP, because some software packages out there, you can do a ramp test, and they'll give you an FTP. In my experience, again, the ramp test gives us more information on max aerobic power, but it's not the best predictor of what your FTP is, we add then that second kind of what we call constrained effort, and from the combination of the ramp, and that we are able to get a much more accurate projection then of what your FTP is, as well as your threshold heart rate.
Jeff Hoobler 22:35
Right, right. And, you know, the, one of the big beauties of this, from the athlete side is it's much more approachable, it's not nearly as daunting and knowing that you're going to, you're going to suffer a little bit. And it gives you a lot of really actionable information. Yep.
Neal Henderson 22:53
And it's, you know, again, you don't have to worry about pacing. So the other things we do know, with power profiling, it's a little bit harder, in some cases, that pace, if you've never done a maximum of five effort, five-minute effort, or one-minute effort, pacing those, it sometimes takes a couple of times to get it right. Whereas in something like that, that half Monty tests that we do, it is a ramp and every minute, it's just going to get harder, you go till you can't you recover a little bit, and then you do a steady effort, where we give you a heart rate target to hold, and you just shift and the power will be what it is. And that's it, you don't have to do anything more than that yet to have those 440 P values, and you're good to go, you're gonna be able to train much more effectively with that, than if you were just trying to take a guess.
Jeff Hoobler 23:35
Right? Just so let's back up here just a second and talk about tests, either indoor-outdoor and, you know, having some specificity around the testing that you're doing according to the type of riding you're doing when you might do them indoors when you might do them outdoors. Yeah,
Neal Henderson 23:56
so, you know, indoor and outdoor power output for some folks is quite different. For some folks, it's actually fairly similar, the most important thing that I would say is you want to have appropriate targets for what you're training. So, if you're going to be if you're getting ready for the indoor season, well, you shouldn't use your outdoor values, like your highest, you know, say, outdoor power is probably different than what you could do indoors for that same kind of effort. And so make sure as you come indoors, again, give yourself a little bit of that transition time before you do an indoor test but test yourself indoors and sometimes you'll find that there are limitations of the equipment that you have the kind of trainer which again, you can listen back to Episode 17 About trainer types and find out you know that in some cases you know, certain trainers may not allow you to express your ability completely indoors and so you know, make sure that you have appropriate targets based on what but what you are using. Same thing if you've been training indoors for a season and then you head outdoors. You might not be as well served if you're using the same targets then outside and so on. Again, if you're transitioning from indoor and outdoor riding, you might want to give yourself you know, a few sessions outside before you go ahead and get a little checkup outside. What is your capacity?
Jeff Hoobler 25:09
Basically use common sense if you're going to be training inside. Let's test inside the outside, probably on a test outside. And then there's another reason to do both.
Neal Henderson 25:20
There we go. Jeff, I like what you're talking about. I like what you're saying right there. I'm buying it.
Jeff Hoobler 25:25
Yeah, we've had a few experiences where we got to try all of the above in a very short time. I can remember that.
Neal Henderson 25:33
Yeah, I definitely found the limit. Doing five different tests in the course of 10 days is absolutely way too much. Do not ever do that. Now having two tests back to back, Jeff, what kind of crazy talk Am I having there? Is that? Is that something you would ever recommend? As a coach? Would you ever have somebody do two tests back to back?
Jeff Hoobler 25:53
I gotta say no. Oh, yes, absolutely. How why? If we were doing a ramp test, followed by a constraint on one day, and then doing a full-frontal or a 40 p test the next day, you know, that first test is a great way to warm up. It's not maximal. And you have a really good idea of your targets for the sustained efforts. So not overshooting them or undershooting them. Gives you a really good shot at hitting in the right numbers.
Neal Henderson 26:26
Yep. And you could even do it if you know if you didn't want to be as aggressive as doing them back to back. You could do one on a Wednesday, have a couple of easy days, little recovery, spin Thursday, Friday, and then get out Saturday and do full frontal with the same kind of benefit of having that idea for pacing for your five minute and 20 minutes based on what you did. In in the ramp.
Jeff Hoobler 26:45
Yep. Yeah. And, you know, there's probably less reason to do, say, an indoor 40 P and an outdoor 40 P in the same week. But if you're doing training, that is indoor and outdoor, it's not a bad idea.
Neal Henderson 27:02
Yeah. And that's, you know, way, way back in 2008, I was working, you know, after the Olympics, actually, Sarah hammer had crashed and broken her collarbone at the Olympic Games was starting training and getting ready. And I was working with her and her coach, I wasn't her coach, but I was working with her and her coach. And we did you know, this kind of protocol where, you know, day one was lab testing. So we had some indoor values because she did some stationary training there. And we got those objective values for vo two Max and our threshold was an anaerobic capacity. And then day two, we go outside and do the power profiling, profiling efforts, five, second, five minutes 20 minute, one-minute maximal efforts in that order, did them about eight weeks in between and see, you know, we were able to see the differences in some of the lab measures as well as their performance outdoors and be able to have appropriate targets. And for me, it was like, Okay, this makes pretty good sense. And really what we do now with half Monty and the full-frontal is pretty much you know, extensions of that. So, you know, it's been developed yet with some pretty high-level athletes, but I've had masters athletes. Yeah.
Jeff Hoobler 28:06
Yeah, I think I was one of those. And I have some very fond memories of doing multiple tests in the same week. Yep. Yeah. All in the name of science, though.
Neal Henderson 28:16
Yep. And to help you be a better rider.
Jeff Hoobler 28:19
It was it, I have to say it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was gonna be.
Neal Henderson 28:25
Yep, just don't make it out to be any bigger than it is. With that, you should have a little more insight into what the value of testing is, when you could when you should consider doing a test, and what kind of tests or evaluations you should use to help you and your fitness journey and to be a better athlete. Thank you for listening, and we'll catch you next time on the knowledge podcast by Wahoo.