Lactate Testing
Add each cycling test repetition with power and measured lactate, then estimate thresholds from the lactate curve.
How Lactate Testing Works
A cycling lactate test uses repeated efforts at rising power. After each repetition, blood lactate is measured and plotted against the power for that step. The curve helps identify how quickly lactate rises as the rider moves from easy aerobic work into harder threshold work.
The Mader method uses the power where blood lactate reaches 4.0 mmol/L as a fixed anaerobic threshold estimate. This tool also supports the modified Dmax method, where LT1 is identified as the first point more than 0.4 mmol/L above baseline lactate, and LT2 is found from the maximum perpendicular distance between the lactate curve and the line from LT1 to the final test point.
Fixed lactate values are useful for repeatable tracking, but they are not universal physiological breakpoints. Dmax scales to the athlete's own curve shape, but it still depends on a consistent protocol - step length, recovery, sampling timing and equipment - when comparing tests over time.