My Power Testing Results
Time for everyone to be nosy.
Hello to all you first-time readers who are nosy about my power data. Welcome to my Substack. In exchange for your nosiness, how about subscribing?
We’re coming towards the end of winter training, and race season is just around the corner. That means it’s testing time. My biggest weakness as an athlete is that I’m always too fit at this time of year and burn out when it matters. That’s something we’ve focused on improving going into 2025.
Anyway, my coach, Alex Welburn, came out to Girona for a couple of days, and during that time, we did some lactate testing.
If you’ve seen any photos or videos of riders getting pricked in the ear this winter, lactate testing is what they’re doing.
“Lactate testing measures the concentration of lactate in your blood during exercise to assess your endurance capacity. It helps determine your lactate threshold—the point at which lactate starts accumulating faster than your body can clear it.”
ChatGPT, February 2025 (corroborated by my coach, Alex Welburn
Why do we do it?
Lactate testing measures how your body produces and clears lactate during exercise. It’s used to set precise training zones and track progress.
The Protocol
We were doing ‘field testing,’ which isn’t quite as accurate but arguably a more realistic representation of what you would see day-to-day. I have completed this test in the lab multiple times before, but these are the roads I train on so we were ‘ecologically validating’. It makes it more applicable to the real world and day-to-day training.
I rode from home, up and over Els Angels (47 mins, 216 W avg, 133 bpm), and then Alex took a baseline lactate sample. I then did five reps at the (ish) following pace: 340 W, 360 W, 380 W, 400 W, 420 W. I'd pull in, Alex would take a sample from my ear and note it down.
Because Alex is mean, he surprised me with a five-minute max test. He calls this hiding the broccoli - I just call it being mean.
My Data
What Does It Mean?
To you, nothing. Data is so personal, and we can effectively paint any picture that we want to. The bad news for me is that training is about to get harder as my threshold is higher than it was previously set. But, after three months of uninterrupted training, that’s what we’d expect to see anyway.
From the results, we can see that in my first step, 343 W, I was at 1.4 mmol·L-1, 0.4 above baseline, essentially the criteria we use for our first threshold, LT1.
The focus was more on my second threshold, LT2. If we just wanted to know LT1, I would have started lower - around 280 W.
I added 20 W on each rep until I hit above 4 mmol·L-1, - a marker to compare previous tests.
We estimate my CP to be around 410 W. So far, my training has largely been based around volume, but going forward, we will start to integrate more intensity and have a dedicated block focussing on V̇O2max.. I bloody hate V̇O2max. .
Excuse Time
For those who want to be nosy. I weigh about 71kg at the minute. My 5-minute power was my second best ever, but granted, I don’t do a 5-minute max out very often.
Equally, this was after 1700 kjs of work, and I didn’t have caffeine. ALSO, I was on my old gravel bike, which I’m not as comfy at for high powers. Excuses? Yes.
Here’s the Strava file. Good luck trying to reverse engineer the maths. I was on my gravel bike with 45mm tyres. V
Equipment Used:
Supermarket own-brand Haribo (They’re 85c for 120g of carbs!!)
Random plastic bag as a bin
Alex’s Suitcase as a workbench
Purple lancets
My ‘Intervalz’ playlist (mainly Avicii)
Links
Alex’s website - https://www.myperformanceproject.com - has a wealth of resources. You can follow his research here https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alex-Welburn?ev=hdr_xprf. My personal favourite is his altitude training zones adjustment chart, but you’ll have to email him for that one.
His Twitter and Instagram are full of data analysis. You’ll see some of my numbers, but more importantly, some very interesting insights on W'bal
He also has a podcast, ‘The Performance Exchange’:
While you’re here…
I’ve added a paid subscription and a ‘Buy Me A Coffee’ link to this post. As the year progresses, I’m planning on building this blog and putting out articles which I’ve always wanted to write but for whatever reason, haven’t wanted to pitch.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/joelaverick
Project TAG, proudly partnering (for my athletic, influencing and maybe pee location ability) with…
Numbers looking a little low, Joe. Glad it’s just the beginning of the season 😏😂
You’re a sicko