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Conditioning Questions

Michael Boyle

I received a bunch of questions from a Perform Better Summit attendee about my Complete Conditioning talk at the summit. (Just FYI, the talk was based on my Complete Conditioning info product that I did last year with Athletes Acceleration.)

 Q1- Is the Maximum Aerobic Speed Test exclusively used for assault bike intervals?  

For us right now the MAS test applies strictly to the Assault Bike. However you could also run for 5 min and get a Maximum Aerobic Speed number for running. Maximum Aerobic Speed numbers for running tend to be in the 4-5 meters per second ( 4.3- 5.5 yds per second) range. That means that 300 yds in 60 second is a 5 yd per second pace while 300 yards in 75 seconds is 4 yards per second.

Maximum Aerobic Speed is basically the pace you can maintain in a 5-6 minute time trial. We tend to favor the bike as it is easy to test and, easy to use, and rarely causes injury.

Q2- Do you ever use watts to convert to a rower from the assault test?

We don't use rowers. Too much back stress. Rowing is much more of skill than riding a stationary bike. I think the reason the Assault Bike has become so popular is that it is a safe alternative to the intensity of the rowing machine.

Q3-How do you obtain HR Max?

We don't. We assume what we see in an MAS test to be 95% of max heartrate. This is clearly not perfect but it's a starting point.

Q4- You said the 220-age was often not accurate?

It's not ( but as I said above it does present a reasonable starting point). Just look for outliers. 

Q5- Is max heartrate done by the MyZone app?

No, MyZone uses 220-age for the same reason. The MyZone app does adjust up if you go above the max but does not have the capacity to adjust down. However, you can manually adjust down by simply raising client age if you wanted to.

Q6- When completing intervals, how many do you do or do you just set a time limit and allow people to work up to a certain effort and stay for a period and allow the return rate to determine the number of intervals?

We set a number, generally starting with 4. 

Q7- How long do you stay at 120% of max once reached before allowing HR to come back down? 

Remember, the load is 120% of MAS, not 120% of max. Usually in an interval they hit that 120% number for only a few seconds toward the end of the interval.

Q8- You said you didn't always require HR monitors for general population clients.  Is there a baseline interval work to rest ratio you use with these clients for time? 1:1, 2:2?

Baseline would be 3-1 to be safe.

Q9- You said you are currently using MyZone.  Have you considered using HRV?

HRV is very different from heartrate and, is more a measure of overall recovery. It won't work for workouts but might tell you if you have overtrained. HRV interest seems to be waning.

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