Monitoring high-intensity endurance exercise with heart rate and thresholds

Ventilatory and lactate thresholds have been proposed as tools to establish the highest steady-state intensity sustainable during prolonged physical exercise. The purposes of this study were to clarify whether the intensity at the ventilatory threshold could be sustained during prolonged high-intensity exercise and if the corresponding work rate, pulmonary ventilation, and blood lactate concentration could also be maintained. Fifteen young and healthy male subjects were submitted to a VO2max test on ergocycle and a 90-min high-intensity ergocycle endurance exercise test. During the 90-min exercise test, subjects were able to maintain an intensity corresponding to a heart rate 5 beats.min-1 lower than that predetermined from the ventilatory threshold. Heart rate, FeO2, and FeCO2 were stable during the period from 20 to 80 min, VO2 was constant from 30 to 80 min, while work output, pulmonary ventilation, blood lactate, and VCO2 decreased significantly over the 90-min performance. These results show that physiological parameters near the ventilatory threshold are not interchangeable and that some cannot be used to monitor high-intensity long term exercise. Moreover, they clearly demonstrate that the blood lactate concentration fluctuates substantially during a 90-min endurance performance and cannot predict the highest work intensity that can be sustained during prolonged exercise without fatigue. However, heart rate and VO2 at the ventilatory threshold seem to be more suitable markers for that purpose.