Physiological Zones Question

You definitely can have circumstances like you describe. For this discussion I will suggest that OBLA, ftp, and LT2 essentially occur at the same spot despite that not being exactly accurate.

Particularly, if this is the case for you, then you have a huge margin of potential improvement. My post graduate work was based on lactate threshold and recovery as a percentage of VO2max and it was not uncommon to have subjects that had a high relative VO2 max relative to what their LT2 was. Some as low as 62% of VO2 max.

In fact I was similar at that time when I was tested. VO2 max of 72ml/kgmin but a LT2 right around 50ml/kgmin which was about 69%. I was 1k and pursuit cyclist so not surprising that had a high VO2 relative to LT2 and was also a match sprinter to begin with. Tons of VO2 and sprint work with tons of recovery in between reps. Could put out relatively high power (just under 2200 watt 5sec peak power) and accumulate high amounts of lactate but cleared it relatively slowly. Not surprisingly I struggle presently with over unders and threshold workouts but can do tons of VO2max work. I created a modified version of baird that I have done forty 1 min on and 1 min off at 130%ftp but put the same amount of threshold work in front of me and I struggle at times.

In your instance, your VO2max would be considered average for males but your LT2 as a percentage of it could potentially be low. You can always do a ramp test for your VO2 max in watts and then compare that to your ftp in watts and see how it looks as a percentage for a rough guesstimate if you were really curious.

Either way your LT2 (ftp) likely has far more room to grow than your VO2 max but both would likely still be quite trainable at this point.

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