Maximal Aerobic Power test

I did Ric Stern’s Maximal Aerobic Power test (MAP) a few weeks ago. Not sure why I’m posting it now but I was cleaning the desktop and found my graphs.

MAP is an easily repeatable test which doesn’t destroy you yet really assesses your fitness quite well. You basically just ramp up the power gradually over a 10-15 minute period until you can’t hold it anymore. The average power of your final minute is your Max aerobic power.

I started at 150 watts and worked up 25 watts per minute until my final minute where I held 471 watts. Functional 1 hour threshold (FTP) is usually 75% of MAP which gives me an estimate of 353 watts, pretty close to the 345 watts I’ve estimated from other methods.

One of the neat parts about the indoor tests on the rollers is how “clean” the data is. It lets me really geek out! Here I calculate the HR-vs-power curve – check out the clear inflection point at 171 bpm which is my anaerobic threshold. Science rules!