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Performance Testing – Why?
By Mike Redshaw
Overview:
Why it is of value to any athlete of any ability.
How it will help inform and optimise your training.
“You can’t change what you don’t measure, and you can’t change if you like the status quo. My view is simple, assess your fitness, set the plan, improve, reassess, re-plan and continue to improve. Improving athletes are happy athletes!”
Why?
My passion is for sports science, the human body and developing athletes. The key to this is making sure that I as a coach am being effective and that my athletes know how they are doing and how they should be training with total confidence. Performance testing is an important part of the jigsaw for achieving this.
The value in it is because time is precious, we are all busy with family, work and friend’s while at the same time trying to get some training in to improve our personal best times. So how do you know you are improving and on course to achieve this or indeed going into your event in better shape? Sure you can feel it, but backing this up with the science will certainly give you confidence that you know your training is working and in turn the motivation to continue your early morning swims, bikes or runs. Performance testing will indentify where you are at, what your training needs are and if any changes to your plan are required.
Performance testing can be lab based or field based. I use both with all my athletes to gauge components of their physical fitness. I am principally looking at their aerobic endurance, this essentially describes your engine and its capacity for work (i.e. your ability to keep moving forward as your speed elevates). I want to know what is happening to your body under different exercise loads since knowing what your training zones are (your effort levels) in relation to your speed/power output will mean an accurate training programme from your coach. The outcome is smart training and a much more effective plan.
Let me give you an example, say I ask a 40yr old athlete to run at 85% of her maximal heart rate for 45 minutes, with the primary aim of developing their aerobic engine and the athlete calculates this the “normal way” 220-age. This gives them a heart rate value of 153 beats per minute. How do you know this is correct? The only way is to assess your fitness and your aerobic engine to see exactly what is 85% of her maximal heart rate. From doing numerous tests I can tell you that athletes zones vary greatly and individual zones are very often lower or higher than 220-age. So what? Well it means that the athlete will either be working too hard or too easy, too hard means the athlete is likely to get over tired, miss or duck out of sessions, not complete hard sessions fully and potentially get ill (pick up bugs) because the planned sessions are working you too hard. Too easy and you will not adapt and improve and thus stay in “the status quo” and plateau.
Optimise what you are doing and indentify what your zones are, as you get fitter these zones change, so regular assessment means you can keep improving. Remember you can’t change what you don’t measure, and you can’t change if you like the status quo. My view is simple, assess your fitness, set the plan, improve, reassess, re-plan and continue to improve. Improving athletes are happy athletes!
If you want more information please email me at: mike@thetrilife.com
