The term “threshold” equals “I’m confused” in the minds of many athletes. And rightly so. This term is often used interchangeably with terms such as anaerobic threshold (AT), lactate threshold (LT), the onset of blood lactate (OBLA), maximal lactate steady state (MLSS) or simply “threshold.”
For many years exercise physiologists have understood that the exercise intensity at which lactate begins to accumulate in the athlete’s blood (which is called Lactate Threshold, or LT) is a great predictor of the athlete’s ability to perform sustained endurance activity.
This is a much better predictor than VO2 Max.
Functional Threshold Power (otherwise known as FTP) is the highest power (watts of output) a cyclist can maintain in a consistent, steady effort for 1 hour. This is a hard, hard effort, and is typically comparable to a 40k time trial, since completing a 40k TT in 1 hour is the “gold standard.”
Therefore, our goal as cyclists is to increase the amount of power output at our lactate threshold. We’ll talk about this in much greater detail in the near future. In the meantime, post your comments below.
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