I notice a lot of professional cyclists now use lactate profiling over traditional FTP testing e.g. Full Monty to determine their training zones. Is it worth us non-professionals doing the same?
It isn’t inexpensive. FTP testing can be done in the comfort of your pain cave. You’ll need to visit a special clinic to get tested.
3 Likes
You’re right James. Here in the UK testing is £180 a test and you’d need it every 3 months I would think. Here’s the article - Is your FTP lying to you? Why lactate profiling could be the future of physiological testing for cyclists | road.cc. Interesting reading though.
2 Likes
Full Frontal or Half Monty.
4 Likes
Well done. You spotted my deliberate mistake. 
4 Likes
Don’t give GvA any ideas either !
(Although I do love Full Monty, like Half Is Monty but where The Other Half Is Also Monty…)
3 Likes
FF is hard enough - imagine powering through while getting your finger pricked every 10 minutes…
I guess we will have to wait for the new Wahoo FINGR that pinches your index finger for a blood sample and connects to the ELEMNT to calculate your lactate profile. Would make perfect sense to accompany a head unit with a hand unit, wouldn’t it?
4 Likes
They use the ear lobe it would seem.
On balance I’ll stick to my tried and tested regime of doing the Half Monty immediately followed by Full Frontal and then averaging the two FTP results.
1 Like
Lol!
2 Likes
Indeed…
Right. And for all the guys who have different blood flowing through their earlobes than through their fingers, it makes perfect sense to only ever rely on a blood sample from the earlobe. Everyone else can prick themselves wherever it suits them.
1 Like
No.
I have physiology degrees and see so much complete nonsense talked online I would avoid it, not because the test isn’t helpful but because you are so likely to read nonsense. The professionals have people who know stuff on the team and don’t rely on the internet. Only do the test if you borrow a physiology book from the library and understand lactate metabolism yourself.
Besides which a lot of the test equipment isn’t accurate enough for what they are trying to do and they’re not careful enough to get near arterial blood and not capillary blood. There are arteries side of fingers. Blood should appear quickly and not need to be forced out. Ideally you’d get true central blood as it left the heart but obviously that is impractical so the arteries on the sides of the fingers are nearish and practical.
Essentially there are so many ways it can go wrong and so much nonsense on the internet I have never bothered. I’ve been tempted to do myself but then the machines aren’t accurate enough at a price I could afford.
4 Likes
Eerke, many thanks for your reasoned reply. Very helpful.
3 Likes