Lindsay Williams working the treadmill. Acutally, here she's just cruising along at a HR of about 130bpm, but she threw down a little bit later on the max portion of the test. Troy Flanagan is sitting at the table, absorbing data. Vordenburg is ducking around taking pictures.

Justin Carlstrom taking my lactate after a short warm-up on the treadmill but before the real work starts.

Getting ready to go, just waiting for the treadmill to start rolling.

Laura Valaas treadmill skiing. Photos: Matt Whitcomb

Testing protocol:
Fill out short background form.
30min warm-up skate skiing outside.
Measure body mass, put on harness.
8min warm-up on treadmill, w/out mask, 4min really slowly, 4min slowly.
Break to take lactate, put on mask.
5min at 4% grade, 3mph. Take lactate.
Repeat, increasing +1mph each time until lactate goes above 4mmol.
20min break, spinning on stationary bike.
Return to treadmill, same 8min warm up w/out mask.
Start at 2mmol speed/grade from previous test.
Increase grade 1% every minute.
Until you fall off.
Take lactate 0, 5, 20 min after end.

At least that's pretty close. I didn't pay too much attention to the details, I was mostly concerned with skiing.

This was my first time rollerskiing on a treadmill. If you can handle the sensation of riding rollers, you wouldn't have any issues with rollerskiing on a treadmill. We're on some kind of green rubbery mat so the poles stick really well without having to be very sharp. VO2 max testing isn't as tough as it looks-- only about 1 minute out of the whole testing procedure is rather painful, the very last minute on the treadmill. There's a harness so you don't have to worry about hurting yourself if you fall. Although I didn't fall, they turned off the treadmill before I'd stopped skiing. I was on my way off the back, but I hadn't actually given up yet. The worst part by far is wearing the mask and having your nostrils pinched shut with a nostril clothespin. Since you can't swallow very well with a big tube in your mouth, you end up getting everything nice and slobbery and when you take off the mask there's a nice slobber waterfall. You don't think about that when you're actually skiing though. I haven't seen any of my graphs or numbers yet, the sports science guys were pretty busy and have a week of very long days so I didn't want to bother them with questions.

Labels: photos, VO2 testing