A 3-PARAMETER CRITICAL POWER MODEL

The critical power test is a well-established procedure that provides estimates of two important parameters characterizing work performance; anaerobic work capacity (AWC) and critical power (CP). The concept pr oscribes a hyperbolic relationship between power output (P) and time t o exhaustion (t), given by (P - CP)t = AWC. Since evidence now exists that the procedure overestimates CP and underestimates AWC, this study was undertaken to investigate the effect of relaxing the requirement that the time asymptote necessarily be at zero. Using data from a prev ious study, it is shown that in so doing, (1) a time asymptote signifi cantly less than zero is obtained, (2) significantly smaller estimates of CP and larger estimates of AWC are obtained, (3) a third parameter is introduced that theoretically represents maximal instantaneous pow er, (4) it implies that the maximal power that could be developed at a ny instant is proportional to the amount of AWC remaining at that inst ant, which in turn implies that (5) at exhaustion not necessary all of AWC is consumed.