Supercycle and Anaerobic Exhaustion

Acute exhaustion occurs when the anaerobic reserve drops to zero. At this state also respiratory exhaustion and very high levels of blood lactate concentration will occur. However only the anaerobic reserve can be computed and monitored live thanks to our app Supercycle. In another post we also learned when and why this anaerobic reserve may even become negative.

Next video shows Kim Knaeps riding to exhaustion. On the screen at the wall we can follow a cast from the Supercycle app installed on her Android phone.
At the time of this test her Maximal aerobic power was 257 Watt, her Super Critical Power was 264 W and her anaerobic capacity W’ was 5.1 kJ
The semi-circular widget shows her actual power, with colour coding in agreement with her ECP training zones.
The number in the center of this widget indicates her actual anaerobic reserve.

The video starts after a few minutes of riding at 290 W with her anaerobic reserve already dropped to 20 % of W’
Next we see her anaerobic reserve dropping to zero, and in an ultimate effort of a few seconds even dropping to a negative -9 % value. At this moment she is “total loss” and has to stop pedalling. In a race she should never reach this point. Monitoring her reserve in real time may prevent her from this disaster and help in pacing the race in an optimal way.