PREDICTING COMPETITION PERFORMANCE IN LONG-DISTANCE RUNNING BY MEANS OF A TREADMILL TEST

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the power of 16 para meters beside the individual anaerobic threshold (IAT) in predicting p erformance in various competition distances. Methods: This study exami ned 427 competitive runners to test the prediction probability of the IAT and other parameters for various running distances. All runners (3 39 men, 88 women; ages, 32.5 +/- 10.14 yr; training, 7.1 +/- 5.53 yr; training distance, 77.9 +/- 35.63 km.wk(-1)) performed an increment te st on the treadmill (starting speed, 6 or 8 km.h(-1); increments, 2 km .h(-1); increment duration, 3 min to exhaustion). The heart rate (HR) and the lactate concentrations in hemolyzed whole blood were measured at rest and at the end of each exercise level. The IAT was defined as the running speed at a net increase in lactate concentration 1.5 mmol. L-1 above the lactate concentration at LT. Results: Significant correl ations (r = 0.88-0.93) with the mean competition speed were found for the competition distances and could be increased using stepwise multip le regression (r = 0.953-0.968) with a set of additional parameters fr om the training history, anthropometric data, or the performance diagn ostics. Conclusions: The running speed at a defined net lactate increa se thus produces an increasing prediction accuracy with increasing. di stance. A parallel curve of the identity straight lines with the strai ght lines of regression indicates the independence of at least a secon d independent performance determining factor.