Metabolic Testing

Understanding Your Body's Energy Needs to Optimize Training

If every athlete knew the precise intensity at which his/her body was most efficient with fuel consumption and most effective at making fitness adaptations (to get stronger and faster), then training would be much easier! Coaches would require that athletes train smart, following the proven principle that we must make the most of hard workouts by training at the appropriate paces and then recover optimally between them. Making easy days easy so that hard days can be appropriately hard, though, is sometimes easier said than done. Often we misread our effort levels, running a bit faster or slower than is ideal to achieve the desired fitness adaptations that will make us stronger, faster, more efficient, and even more lean as athletes.

Metabolic testing is one of the most scientific and objective ways for an athlete to gather data about the body's performance and energy needs at varied intensity levels. Using that data, the athlete can train at the appropriate speeds (and corresponding effort levels) to make every step count, whether on long runs, easy runs, tempo runs, or speed sessions. VO2 Max Testing uses a metabolic analyzer on a gas/exchange system, which is designed to read and interpret the athlete's energy consumption by analyzing the athlete's expired air (through a mask) during a treadmill test. During testing, the runner starts with an easy warm up and then, according to test protocol, is taken through progressively greater speeds and eventually a sharp incline, requiring the body to make use of all energy systems. Following the test, the technician will be able to calculate precise training zones and corresponding heart rates, so that the runner understands at which paces/heart rate zones he/she can train most effectively.

Interested in Metabolic Testing to identify your personal training zones? Contact Us for more information!