The first part of the test was the Anthropometric measurements... a skin fold fat test. With complex calculations and many pinches' later I turned out to be 8.6% body fat. I found out that the elite guys try to get to 6% during the peak/climax phase of training. I was very surprised to hear that I will loose weight or fat mass before the end of this project.
Second part is the Lactate Threshold. Rowing on Watts setting on the Erg, I started at 180W and held it for 3 minutes, after which I gave a blood sample 1 min rest, and increased 30W. Second intensity was 210W, then 240W and so on and so forth. After a peak level of of lactate (0.6 mmol/DL) the test involves increasing 30W every 1min until capacity. This last step was the exhausting part. Going hard until I could no longer pull - which is much longer than I thought. I actually said 2-3times to James in a high-pitched voice "I can't - I can't do it" but he explained if you have enough energy to say that then I had enough energy to keep going... Catch 22.
I got to 450Watts! I don't directly know what that means until I can compare it to additional tests. James explained that most National Lightweights were at the same level and a few pushed into 480W. That is were I need to get.
Summary: I have poor efficiency in the low-effort rowing - I spin the flywheel with no real power. This causes my Lactate to jump up right away when it should be really steady until the Threshold of power near Aerobic/Anaerobic conversion. When I started pulling at high-effort and intensity my Lactate curve would normalize to the elite level guys. This is good news to me - I need to work on low intensity technique and effort.
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