Power Tests

There are a lot of field and lab power tests out there and even some fancy computer programs to measure your fitness. I’ve picked a handful of simple ones you can do with a power meter and a google spreadsheet. If you’re my client and interested let me know and I’ll put them in your training plan. If not you can find them here on Trainingpeaks. Reach out for a discount. Here is a little bit about the tests you’ll find there.

Functional Threshold Power

This is the bread and butter of power testing. Twenty minutes as consistently hard as possible. Ninety five percent of that is a really good estimate of your lactate or functional threshold power.

Fatigue Profile Zone 6 and 7

This test can show us things like if we are a short sprinter or a long sprinter and how far from the line to take a late race flyer.

Fatigue Profile Zone 5 VO2 Max

This looks at VO2 max and aerobic power fatigue resistance. You might also guess how much VO2 max power comes from anaerobic metabolism versus aerobic.

Fatigue Resistance - 1 hour after 1500 kilojoules

There is big difference between putting power out at the beginning of a race and the end of a race. It’s one of the main things that separates professional riders from the rest of us. Amber Neben once gave access to her power numbers. It turns out her 20 minute power dropped just 1.5% after a four hour ride. A category 3 racer’s power could drop around 12%!

This is a diabolical test to show test out how much we aerobically fatigue.

Fresh and Fatigued VO2 Max RPE Efforts

Another test of fatigue resistance but more specific to VO2 max power.