Lab Rat

Two weeks ago I scheduled an appointment to visit Dr. Inigo San Millan, to run a series of human performance standard tests at his CU-Denver lab. Wednesday was my day with Dr. San Millan and I learned a lot from the US-educated, Basque-native former medical director for pro cycling teams including Astana, Saunier-Duval, ONCE and individual riders like TdF winner Alberto Contedor.

The last time I had performed any lab tests was nearly six years ago when I was living in Belgium and was required to get a battery of tests completed to participate in Belgian Tri Federation races. Dr. San Millan administered a similar test in terms of the equipment used, and parameters measured, however his protocol for testing was far different from the cardiology-based test I had received years earlier.

The biggest difference was the length of time during the test at which he kept me cycling under specific watts/kilogram loads. He explained his reason for keeping this level at 10 minutes was because at 4 or 6 minute intervals, few distinctions could be made between Rider A and Rider B. However, you can see distinct differences when the intervals near 10 minutes in length.

I can't give out all the secrets on the values we found or his recommendations as to my current fitness levels, but I will say it was quite an enlightening process. His major goals with each athlete are to ensure an athlete is not overtraining or drastically underperforming and he does this by closely monitoring blood. He suggested two tests each season for any athletes, serious or rec, as he nearly always sees athletic performance diminish during the summer months during the peak months of the racing season.

I've posted a short video of my test you can see by clicking on the title of this blog entry.

LF