Testing To Get Faster Mile High Endurance Podcast

Welcome to Episode #336 of the 303 Endurance Podcast. You are listening to your weekly connection to coaches, experts, and pro athletes to help you reach your endurance goals. We're your hosts coach Rich Soares and 303 Chief Bill Plock. Thanks for joining us for another week of endurance interviews and discussion.
 
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In Today's Show
Feature Coaching Topic How Testing Makes You Faster Endurance News IRONMAN World Championship Results Utah Sports Commission Expected To Create Total Economic Impact Of More Than $35m Dollars PTO Pro Am, to be held this Sunday 15 May at the Herbalife24 Triathlon Los Angeles What's new in the 303 Triathlon Races in Colorado this Season Video of the Week TBD  
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Training Discussion: Regular Testing
 
Regular testing to determine your threshold intensities in each discipline is an important (arguably essential) practice to getting faster. This works for new and experienced athletes. Newer athletes may find this a bit demanding, but it will help you get faster, faster. Testing regularly is particularly helpful for athletes who have some experience and find themselves plateauing in their performance.
 
Here's how the cycle works. Take bike power for example. You want to take a baseline FTP test to determine your  Functional Threshold Power. FTP is theoretically the power in Watts you can average for 45-60 minutes. This FTP becomes an anchor point for determining your training zones. Having accurately determined training zones is important for making sure you do prescribed training in the right zones.
 
For example, if you want to increase your threshold power you need to train at that Z4 Threshold zone to train your body to process muscle lactate efficiently. The more time you spend in that zone, the more adaptation you get. Without the FTP number or accurate substitute, you may be training in the wrong zone (eg Z3 or Z5), neither of which create the same adaptation of teaching your body to improve lactate processing and increasing your capacity to do work. Training regularly and progressively overloading the correct training zones over the course of 3 weeks on the 4th week you retest. If things are working, the next FTP test is at a higher average power than the one 4 weeks earlier. You then adjust the training zones. In this case increasing the power ranges for each zone. Another 3 weeks of training at the new (accurate) zones causes another adaptation, another test, another increase, another adjustment to training zones, etc.
 
Swim:
Perform a 400 time trial effort from a push (not dive). Recover for 10 to 15 minutes with easy swimming and rest. Perform a 200 time trial effort from a push. Looking to calculate CSS or CV as Meters or Yards Per Minute. The higher the number the faster your are. If you go real fast o