Experience w/ lab lactate threshold testing. Worth it?

[u/RunNYC1986]

Hi all— just wondering what everyone’s experience has been doing lactate threshold testing in a lab, university performance center or even your own prick tests?

-Was it worth the investment?

-What was beneficial?

-Were the zones or details you identified surprising, or about on par/in the ballpark with what you can deduce from typical effort based training? (Or even your watch?)

These can be expensive and I generally have a sense of what my zones are. Just want to hear about other’s experiences.

[u/QxV]

I did it about a month ago and it completely changed my training, although your mileage may differ.

For context, I felt like I had plateaued in my training for about a year and a half. I was doing most of my runs easy, with one track day a week, one tempo run, and a long run, basically following the 80/20 rule, with about 50-70 mpw.

It was actually really funny when I got on the treadmill and the tech kept cranking up the speed and telling me that my blood lactate levels weren't rising. Turns out, what I thought was "easy" Z2 for me (around 8:45-9:00 min/mile) was deep in Z1, and my actual Z2 from testing was closer to 7:20-7:30 min/mile - I basically never ran at that pace for the past 2 years, it was either much slower during most of my runs, or faster during a workout.

My LT was about where I thought it was, maybe a touch higher.

But having the complete graph told me that I had to completely re-think how I train - my LT curve basically looked like a "trained athlete" (i.e., a curve with a bend vs. a straight line), and I need to stop base building and actually "push" the curve out to the right.

For me, what that meant was for the past month or so, I've completely switched my training week to focus on 3 hard workouts (Tuesdays, Fridays, Sundays), and fitting in easy/recovery miles as a secondary priority. Already I feel a lot faster at race paces (e.g., a 90 min half used to feel super hard for me about a year ago, but I'm doing 12 miles at that pace within an 18 mile long run).

Plan now is once I start to feel like I've stagnated with the LT work (probably in a few weeks?), to switch back to building mileage, but with some actual Z2 miles in there.

It also taught me that my own internal perception of easy/hard is not always right. I'm guessing that for an untrained person, Z2 is probably supposed to feel easier than what they think, but once you've built a solid base, I think Z2 no longer feels "easy".

All in all, well worth the money for me.

[u/SuperIntegration → u/QxV]

I had the same experience. Lab testing told me two things:

I was smashing myself to bits on tempo runs and going far too fast My "easy Z2" was actually Z1 and I needed to push a little more.

Really, really helped me similarly to how it helped you.

[u/RunningOrangutan → u/QxV]

What changed for you then? It sounds like you are still doing 3 quality days a week, did you just make those quality days more intense essentially? And bring up your recovery/easy days pace?

[u/[deleted]]

I run a metabolics program that does gas exchange tests, body comp, etc and has used LT pricks for testing/training purposes.

For someone who's got some experience under their belt, I think it can give you a lot of insight, but if you're still relatively new/don't have a solid foundation already developed, it might not be worth the time + expense since things are going to move anyways.

It can be good for contextualizing speed/tempo work with your internal barometer and your zones, but it can be a nuisance and you really need someone who understands what they're doing to coach/mentor you for full efficacy if you're using them consistently and relatively speaking I don't think there's that many people out there who do that well, though those coaches do exist.

On paper, routine use during each session could allow for individualized workout adjustments. For most people, I wouldn't think the cost and logistical components are worth routine use and would only directly suggest it in a testing context if I was asked since I don't train endurance athletes anymore.

[u/herlzvohg]

I can't imagine it's worth while unless you're regularly doing it during your workouts to keep track of it. And even then it's gonna be a pretty marginal benefit if you have an okay ability to go by feel

[u/Annoying_Arsehole]

I've done once it to confirm my training speeds. There were no surprises which was good and brought me peace of mind, now I can confidently go forwards planning my own training.

Ofcourse my speed has evolved since, however aerobic and anaerobic threshold heart rates don't really change much so I can use that knowledge for future. Might do another check some time as I get 50% discount so it isn't that expensive.

It was 200€ for the protocol including lactate, breathing gas analysis, ekg, body composition etc.

[u/[deleted]]

I did one recently, and I didn’t find it very useful. The LT1 and LT2 were very similar to what I was expecting, so nothing drastically changed in terms of training.

My coach and I set up the heart rate zones on trainings apps for more accurate training stress, but it’s not something we use to guide the training.

To address some comments from others (running easy runs too slow), the upper end of Z2 is a bit too fast for my liking, and I cannot sustain that pace when running 70-100mpw. This may be different for different people, but for me, running just under LT1 would mean running myself to the ground.

The heart rate zones I got didn’t really match up with reality, I can run 8hrs at average heart rate that falls into a low Z3. The marathon average heart rate falls into low Z4 and half marathon is high Z4.

I am a trail ultra runner with roughly 6 years of consistent, structure training.

I have also done a blood test that cost me similar amount and I found that to be much more useful from the overall health perspective.

[u/Adventurous-Money314]

I did it and thought it was valuable. I liked the actual HR zones and they gave me specific HR intervals and training routines to increase VO2 max etc.

My HR zones were very different vs standard calculations. My easy run zone was way higher (114-158) and higher zones were more slim:  Zone 2: 158-168 Zone 3: 169-176 zone 4: 177-184 Zone 5: 185-191

[u/aeph8]

I did a combined lactate + vo2 test. It confirmed my guesses for LT1 and LT2 that were based on perceived effort / race results. Nice to have more confidence in my own perception, but I won't do the test again.

One suggestion though: don't do both lactate and vo2 in a single test. The lactate protocol is much more drawn out if you want to find both LT1 and LT2, so by the time you need to put in an vo2 effort (extremely hard) you've already been running for 40 minutes. Honestly just don't do a vo2 test at all, doesn't provide any practical information.

[u/littlefiredragon]

The problem with lactate testing is that it is on a treadmill and you will be faster on a treadmill. It’s also in a cool comfortable air-conditioned environment but I live in a hot humid country and I mostly run outside.

I got pace ranges that were a little faster than I felt were right, and while they were a nice reference, I never really followed them until I went to cooler Japan on holiday and everything clicked.