The 3-minute all-out test
Go as hard as you can for three minutes. The power you can still hold in the last 30 seconds is your critical power: the highest effort you can sustain for a long time. Everything you did above it tells you how big your reserve is.
What it tells you
Critical power (CP) or critical speed is the boundary between efforts you can hold for a long time and efforts that drain you.
W′ (said "W prime") is the fixed amount of work you can do above that line. Every second above CP spends it. When it's gone, you have to slow down.
That gives you a practical rule: at any pace above CP, time until you have to slow = W′ ÷ (your power − CP).
Method: Vanhatalo, Doust and Burnley, 2007, for cycling; Pettitt, Jamnick and Clark, 2012, for running. It works on a bike or a track, as long as the effort is truly all-out from the start.
Before you start
- Warm up for 10 to 15 minutes, including two or three short, hard efforts.
- Rest 5 minutes.
- Start the timer and go all-out from the first second. Don't pace it.
- Keep pushing to the end. Your output will fall. That's the point.
- Write down your average for the whole 3 minutes and for the last 30 seconds.
Ready
Work out your numbers
Use watts from a bike or any power meter, or speed from a run.
Ask FlowCoach about the testLibrary-based interpretation, not a score
A published protocol (Vanhatalo 2007; Pettitt 2012). FlowCoach explains from the library and cites it.
Sign in to ask, or read the library entry.