Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Conconi Test

I finally tested myself using the Conconi test. I actually did the test in February but I've been a bit busy recently and haven't been blogging.

I found that my lactate threshold is at approximately 157 beats per minute. So that should be a nice baseline to work with.

Last night I got on the exercise bike and pedalled for 42 minutes; I was watching the end of an episode of Nova which I'd recorded on my MythTV. I kept my pulse approximately constant between 154 and 160 except for a single sprint interval at the 35 minute mark where I sprinted up to 171 for a minute just to experiment with the interval effect.

As expected, I found that I could continue almost indefinitely at the 157 bpm pace, although I found that I had to keep adjusting my cadence as my cardio system found its rhythm after so long out of the saddle. Next time I'll keep my cadence constant and adjust the resistance. According to the bike I burned 405 calories, however, I'm not sure how accurate that is. I'm going to try some experiments to gauge the accuracy of the calorific counter as it would be an ideal way to check my progress in lieu of a watt meter.

Have you just restarted an exercise regime? How is it going?