Lessons from the Lab

The lab simplifies the path forward for the athlete, showing how the body is responding to training and taking us back to the basics.

Video Transcript

Joe Friel  00:04

Julie, I assume you spend quite a bit of time in the lab working with athletes, talking with athletes, talking with coaches who have their athletes there. When you’re doing this, are you trying to convey anything to the athlete about the data that you’re looking at? You’ll try to inform them on what VO2 Max means, or whatever it is you’re talking about, oxygen saturation, or maybe you’re overlooking it. But, are there things that you’re really hoping to achieve with the athlete, besides just getting numbers out of them when they’re in the lab?

Lab Testing Key Takeaways

Julie Young  00:38

I mean, we do a lot of lactate threshold testing, and I think there’s some danger to that. Just because, at a certain point, the athlete is going to be working super hard, but may not be seeing those increases in power. I think, for me, that lab work really helps that athlete understand what’s happening under the hood. While the power may not infinitely increase, they’re improving, they’re becoming more efficient at holding a certain wattage. I think that’s nice to help athletes kind of see that, and understand that. I also think it’s really valuable, and this can happen different ways, but help emphasize the fact, like, they’re doing these different training intensities and zones for reasons. I think the hardest thing is to get endurance athletes to actually ride it endurance, and not go too hard.

Joe Friel  01:33

Which means ride easy.

Julie Young  01:34

Yes, yes.

Joe Friel  01:36

Lower the power output.

Julie Young  01:36

Yes, and understand. I think in any case, really educating the athlete in terms of why they’re doing things to help them be more purposeful, but just really emphasize the importance of that long endurance zone and what’s happening there. Then from their lactate curve, just help them understand in this zone, you want to, you want to train here for this purpose, and here for this purpose. So it’s a nice visual.

Joe Friel  02:02

So, you’ve learned a lot of things in the laboratory from working with athletes, I’m sure. If you could take one lesson there and give it to coaches, one lesson you’ve learned from working with athletes in the lab, and say this is the one thing I would really have you emphasize with your athletes, is there anything like that you could say, this is a key point?

Most Important Points When Working in the Lab with Athletes

Julie Young  02:22

I mean, I guess I would go back to that, and again, I’m using cyclists and using power.

Joe Friel  02:29

Sure.

Julie Young  02:30

But again, I think if we fixate too much on that, it really cheats the athlete. To help, like, again, create that perspective for the athlete, like it’s not all about that power number. That’s just an outcome in terms of what you’re really trying to train. Unfortunately, sometimes we can’t see that, if people don’t have access to a lab. I think that’s what I would really emphasize with the coach is to help the athlete maintain that perspective.