104 - AMB
HOW TO
TEST YOUR
FITNESS
Words: Jenni King @pedAlAB photos: roBert Conroy
Many athletes only gauge their fitness and
progression through race results. While
this does give a direct Measure of Where
fitness is at relative to coMpetitors, it is
also iMportant that this not be the only
Measure of personal iMproveMent. after all,
We have no influence on another athlete’s
perforMance and it May be that they are
training just as hard and progressing at the
saMe rate and your oWn iMproveMent May not
be reflected in the race result.
Fitness testing is a great way to gauge your form and to check to see that
the training you are doing is helping you progress in the right direction. in
the last AMB issue i spoke about the importance of setting yourself some
‘process’ goals and using the ‘sMArt’ guidelines to do so. Aiming to produce
pBs in your regular fitness tests is one of the best forms of a process goal
because, for the most part, you will have complete control over the outcome.
the MAp test involves riding at increasingly higher powers until
exhaustion, therefore reaching the maximum capacity of your aerobic
system by the end. A power meter is used to determine your average
power for the last minute of the test and this is your MAp score. Most
importantly, this value should be divided by your current weight to give a
power to weight score.the MaxiMal aerobic poWer test
i generally find that incorporating regular fitness tests in an athlete’s
program, provides great feedback to both me as the coach and to the athlete
themselves. the athlete then becomes motivated to train harder and more
consistently in order to better their time or their power values at the next
scheduled test.the most appropriate form of fitness test to include in your training program
will depend on a number of factors including: the type of training you have
been doing; the event you are training for and the available equipment. those
lucky enough to be training with a power meter have a number of options.
perhaps, the most common and relevant tests would be the Maximal Aerobic
power (MAp), threshold and power profile tests. such tests are commonly
carried out by state and national institutes for both talent identification and
to check on athlete progress.here is a power profile of a MAp test i performed back in september 2014.
Following a good warm up, you can see that the power lifts gradually (5w
every 20sec) and my peak 1min average power was 269w. At the time i
was 52kg and so my MAp score was 5.2w/kg.there are a few different protocols used, but generally it is best for
female athletes to start off at around 75w and increase by 5w every
20sec (15w per minute) and male athletes start at around 150w and
increase by 5w every 12sec (25w per minute).this test is a great one to do every 2-3 months, particularly leading into the
season, to make sure your training is working and your aerobic capacity
is lifting!