Testing for Aerobic Decoupling

[Michaelakers1985]

Another post! Sorry! I wondered if anyone on here knows of any workout that would be ideal for testing aerobic decoupling.

I’m very much a complete amateur on this subject but would think it’s very handy for Ironman and especially to test the 0.70-0.75 intensity target. So ignoring cardiac drift that could happen during indoors due to heat and excursion.

Would a longer step test be a good way of testing and perhaps seeing HR rise too much over a given power target? I know over a certain power zone we are essentially burning more of our energy store than we can replace.

Hope this makes sense or am I completely off the mark with this?

[bbarrera]

single power target over a “long” period of time.

[mcneese.chad]

Two articles worth review to get your head around it:

Are You Fit? Aerobic Endurance and Decoupling

How To Use Aerobic Decoupling

[Michaelakers1985]

Yes perhaps I’m over thinking it. So target race power, so say Ironman watts on non erg mode and watch for when it goes into say out of the desired zone

[Michaelakers1985]

Oh thanks, perfect. Will give this a read

[bbarrera]

Here is a 90 minute workout I used a year ago during early base:

What workout did you do today? (2018/2019)

[image] 60% FTP for 90 minutes, my new aerobic endurance ride to gauge progress over time. Guesstimated I need 30-minutes to warmup and tested that by hitting lap button on bike computer: [image] Yup Then looked at EF and decoupling over final 60 minutes: [image] [image] Over time as FTP goes up I want to see increase in EF. Decoupling nice and flat, and under 1%.

WKO5 is being used for graphing, but there are other tools out there like TrainingPeaks and Intervals.icu.

Here is a 2 hour segment from an outdoor ride at tempo (78% FTP):

see how the HR trend line and power trend line are parallel like a set of railroad tracks? That is 0.05% decoupling, essentially no decoupling.

And here is a 2.5 hour / 4500 foot (1370m) climb where I rode to HR (~154bpm) and let power drop as elevation went from 1350’ to 5850’

decoupling is about 7.5% and you can see the power trend line is falling while the HR trend line is almost flat.

Hope those examples help.

[Michaelakers1985]

Yes thankyou, a lot to absorb.

I think you are right, best to start at 60% first and watch HR plus cadence as not all power is created equal

[hubcyclist]

This is one way to do it lol joking of course but I’m always going to be happy about getting about 4% on a 100 mile ride

[bbarrera]

gets easier, helps to start out looking at a workout at constant power (60% or 65% or 70% or whatever). After initial warmup (mine are about 20-30 minutes), look at decoupling for 30 minutes or ideally longer.