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MagneticDays Training Philosophy – incremental exercise test is the way

  9 May 2018

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In the last article about the MagneticDays Training Philosophy we have talked about how to increase Bike Power (the great innovation about our Indoor Training System) working with the two fundamental components of “Power data”: RPM (Revolution Per Minute) and Force (Newton Per Meters), and how it is absolutely necessary to determine the specific physiological values for each athlete before to write a custom built training.

The HTT Methodology represent the most scientific built training programs that are currently possible and it starts with the incremental exercise test. Everything is based on a first briefing session with a MD Coach, where the user/client defines own goals. Second step is the start of evaluation of athletic training form in order to understand the real physiological parameters of the user/athlete. Third step is represented by the first 6 built training programs (duration: 60 minutes for each) that are different from each other. The last part of these programs includes additional parameters that allow to create next workouts.

Generally, the last part of workout No 6 is represented by a test that allows to understand the efficacy of the previous workouts and their effects on physiological values of the athlete, giving informations (and new data) to MD Coach in order to write new built (and calibrated) training programs.

Incremental Test is the first approach with MagneticDays

Our incremental test protocol (made in collaboration with a few Italian Universities) starts from a value in the amount of 50% of own reference value. MD System improves the Power of 1 Watt per 6 seconds with RPM free. This test ends when the user/athlete has reached maximum effort and therefore cannot proceed further with the test.

The first evaluation by MagneticDays is to observe the natural cadence for each user/athlete. What does it mean? The first important thing for us is to know the natural cycling cadence, in order to optimize the pedalling technique and efficiency for each user/athlete. For this reason, this protocol represent the right compromise between accuracy and execution times. Another right protocol (even more accurate than this) is represented by 1 Watt per 8 seconds, but the execution times are too long.

The incremental test protocol gives exact data on:

• Watt produced by user/athlete at Threshold
• Physiological features on the basis of the natural balance between RPM and Newton
• Average RPM produced by user/athlete from a value in the amount of 50% of own reference value up to the Threshold and over
• Average RPM at over the Threshold

As already mentioned above, the last part of workout No 6 is represented by this test that allows to understand the efficacy of the previous workouts and their effects on physiological values of the athlete, giving informations (and new data) to MD Coach in order to write new built (and calibrated) training programs. But this test is totally different if compared to the last part of workout No 12 (sustainable power) if the user/client chooses to continue with the HTT Methodology.

Having at disposal more data about the user/athlete, the MD Coach will set a typology of workout named “Time Trial Distance” (more fun than classic Time Trial) with a duration of 30 minutes.

Incremental test is more accurate with MagneticDays

With our Indoor Training System we can always refer to the same state (measuring all the parameters that we need to know) having always the same benchmark, a work condition that is impossible to reproduce outdoor where everything is constantly changing (read more here). One of the advantages of our System is to have at disposal a “high precision virtual gear” (buttons control for PC or */- signs for App WiFi) that allows to make changes in terms of 0,5 Newton to find the best effort during the test (0,5 Newton at 80 RPM are equal to 4 watt). So this virtual gear is 10 time more accuracy than a classic gear, where the change of one of the gear’s teeth is equal to a variation of 40 Watt with a consequent low quality in terms of determination of the exact “physiological cycling cadence” of the user/athlete. From the average between Newton and RPM, the MD Coach can observe the right data to set the next test named “Time Trial Newton”.. but we will talk about this in the next article! 😉