Translating VO2Max Zone>Power Zone?

bahzob

Very often, for good reasons, sports studies will quantify workload in terms of time spent at %of V02Max rather than absolute power.

e.g. 8*4 mins at 88% of VO2Max

or 45 mins at 70% VO2Max.

I've tried to find a table that shows how this would equate to power zones derived from FTP but without success. Just from the duration I would guess 88% is above FTP and 70% below but not sure by how much or what the slope is (e.g. is 65% VO2max vs 70% VO2Max = 13/14 in power or more or less?)

(I found this link to work out VO2 from a 20 minute test but not sure how valid this is nor it could be used for above purposes http://www.hunterallenpowerblog.com/2013/06/how-to-calculate-your-own-vo2max_24.html)

If anybody can link a table or supply a method of calculating would be appreciated.

disgruntledgoat

The racing & Training with a Power Meter Book and, in fact, Golden Cheetah has Vo2 max as 104%-120% of FTP, so 88% of Vo2 Max would be (taking the mid point as 112% of FTP) almost exactly FTP. 70% would be just under 80% of FTP or bottom end of tempo/upper endurance.

Alex_Simmons/RST

bahzob wrote:

Very often, for good reasons, sports studies will quantify workload in terms of time spent at %of V02Max rather than absolute power.

e.g. 8*4 mins at 88% of VO2Max

or 45 mins at 70% VO2Max.

I've tried to find a table that shows how this would equate to power zones derived from FTP but without success. Just from the duration I would guess 88% is above FTP and 70% below but not sure by how much or what the slope is (e.g. is 65% VO2max vs 70% VO2Max = 13/14 in power or more or less?)

(I found this link to work out VO2 from a 20 minute test but not sure how valid this is nor it could be used for above purposes http://www.hunterallenpowerblog.com/2013/06/how-to-calculate-your-own-vo2max_24.html)

If anybody can link a table or supply a method of calculating would be appreciated.

The problem is that fractional utilisation of VO2max at FTP is both highly individually variable and is one of the more trainable aspects of performance meaning it can change for an individual quite a lot through training/detraining.

It can be easily be anywhere in the range of 50% to 90%, for very untrained/sedentary to the very highly trained respectively.

For trained cyclists, 70-85% is a bit more realistic, although higher is certainly feasible.

The maths behind the relationships I discuss in this item:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com.au/2013/ ... -hood.html

Alex_Simmons/RST

disgruntledgoat wrote:

The racing & Training with a Power Meter Book and, in fact, Golden Cheetah has Vo2 max as 104%-120% of FTP, so 88% of Vo2 Max would be (taking the mid point as 112% of FTP) almost exactly FTP. 70% would be just under 80% of FTP or bottom end of tempo/upper endurance.

Or either side of that, although more likely less since efforts at such a power level, while dominantly fuelled by aerobic metabolism, also have a not insignificant contribution from anaerobic metabolism to meet the energy demand.

I think there needs to be a couple of distinctions made.

Firstly, VO2max is a rate of O2 utilisation, not power output.

Secondly, the power training level is descriptively labelled "VO2max" because increasing VO2max is the primary, but certainly not the sole nor exclusive, physiological "benefit" of training performed at such a level.

It also happens to correspond to a range of power that will induce a state of VO2max, although that can also be induced from efforts above and below this range, it's just a matter of time/duration, e.g. due to the slow component of VO2max for lower level effort, or say how quickly one can reach their maximal accumulated O2 deficit in shorter hard efforts.

bahzob

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

The problem is that fractional utilisation of VO2max at FTP is both highly individually variable and is one of the more trainable aspects of performance meaning it can change for an individual quite a lot through training/detraining.

It can be easily be anywhere in the range of 50% to 90%, for very untrained/sedentary to the very highly trained respectively.

For trained cyclists, 70-85% is a bit more realistic, although higher is certainly feasible.

The maths behind the relationships I discuss in this item:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com.au/2013/ ... -hood.html

Thanks for the link. Looks like very interesting reading, just about to make a start on it. The reason for asking originally was just to be able to put the protocols used in studies using VO2Max as a measure into some sort of context.

Alex_Simmons/RST

bahzob wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

The problem is that fractional utilisation of VO2max at FTP is both highly individually variable and is one of the more trainable aspects of performance meaning it can change for an individual quite a lot through training/detraining.

It can be easily be anywhere in the range of 50% to 90%, for very untrained/sedentary to the very highly trained respectively.

For trained cyclists, 70-85% is a bit more realistic, although higher is certainly feasible.

The maths behind the relationships I discuss in this item:
http://alex-cycle.blogspot.com.au/2013/ ... -hood.html

Thanks for the link. Looks like very interesting reading, just about to make a start on it. The reason for asking originally was just to be able to put the protocols used in studies using VO2Max as a measure into some sort of context.

Yes, direct translation to your power profile is tricky. While athletes in these studies might all be performing work at a similar % of their VO2max, they won't all be at the same % of their FTP.

It's an important consideration when thinking about the training dose and response reported by such studies.