It is important that athletes in elite endurance sport train in specific training zones. Especially young athletes have to learn to correctly estimate the individual training intensities. It is not often possible to test young endurance athletes under laboratory settings and field tests can be an appropriate method to determine individual training zones. However, in most of these tests, the intensities are predetermined and it is difficult to evaluate, if young athletes correctly choose their training intensities. The aims of this study were: firstly, to examine, if Swiss national team cyclists are able to hit the four most common training zones in cycling in a new `4 x 3000m cycling field test` (FTE). Secondly, to investigate how heart rate (HR) at the anaerobic threshold (AT) determined in the FTE corresponds with the HR at AT from laboratory results. Methods 21 Swiss national team cyclists from the disciplines mountain bike, road and cycle-cross (15 males and 6 females; age = 15.3 ± 0.5 years) performed at first a progressive test in laboratory (PTL) to determine HR at lactate threshold (LT) as well as at AT (ADAPT-method; Bishop, Jenkins & Mackinnon, 1998). The HR training zones for cyclists were determined as follows:`easy` < LT, `medium` between `easy` and `hard`, `hard` HR ± 10 bpm at AT and `all out` > `hard`. Secondly, the athletes performed the FTE, where they cycled four times 3000m on a 400m track in steady intensities based on their perceived exertion. They tried to hit the training zones `easy`, `medium`, `hard` and `all out`. After each 3000m stage, the athletes had a two minute break, when blood lactate was measured. Thereafter, HR at AT in FTE was compared with the HR at AT in PTL (polynomial interpolation of lactate values from PTL at AT for the FTE to determine the corresponding HR). Results Nine of 21 athletes hit the four training zones in the FTE correctly. There was no difference in HR at AT (PTL: 178 ± 8 bpm; FTE: 175 ± 9 bpm; p = 0.06). There was no difference (p = 0.59) in HR at AT expressed as percentage of HRmax between PTL (93 ± 2 %) and FTE (92 ± 3 %). Discussion and Conlusion Our results showed that less than half of the U17 Swiss national team cyclists were able to hit the four most common training zones. This underlines the importance of training and testing the perceived exertion at this age. HR at AT corresponded highly between both tests, even when the training intensities where not chosen correctly. We suggest that the `4 x 3000m cycling field test` can be a useful tool to evaluate the perceived exertion and to determine the four most common training zones in cycling.
© Copyright 2009 14th annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science, Oslo/Norway, June 24-27, 2009, Book of Abstracts. Veröffentlicht von The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. / Übersetzt mit https://www.DeepL.com/Translator