Targeted sports medical performance diagnostics enables a differentiated diagnosis of the current performance level. In recent years, performance diagnostics was primarily intended for performance-oriented competitive athletes to optimize their training. Especially athletes in the field of pure endurance sports were regularly examined in order to maximize their competitive performance.
Through the targeted analysis of athletic performance, sports medical performance diagnostics was applied in the field of game sports. Hardly any sports club of higher performance classes today does without the standardized analysis of the performance of individual athletes. In recent years, performance diagnostic examinations have increasingly moved into the focus of leisure and popular sports. Especially recreational athletes with little training experience benefit from a targeted examination and subsequent training planning. If you are interested in performance diagnostics, please click here for our offers.
What types of performance diagnostics are available?
There are several options available for performance diagnostics in sports. In the past, the standardized lactate level test has become generally accepted. The athlete starts at a fixed speed on a treadmill, bicycle ergometer or rowing machine.
The speed is increased by a certain value every three minutes. At the end of the interval, the lactate value and heart rate are recorded. The values are entered into a table and evaluated at the end of the interval using a curve, the so-called lactate curve.
Further possibilities of performance diagnostics are possible by means of spiroergometry. A rudimentary form of performance diagnostics is the Cooper test, which is mainly used in school sports. Our performance diagnostics department has been using the lactate level test as a test parameter for performance diagnostics for years.
In most cases, sports training and training planning is based on heart rate tables. However, these tables are subject to a very large intra- and interindividual variation. Training planning based on these tables is therefore not possible, or only possible to a very limited extent.
Performance diagnostics determines the individual anaerobic threshold by means of lactate values in the blood. It is assumed that the human body is no longer able to synthesize athletic performance from a certain training intensity through the oxidative (with consumption of oxygen) combustion of carbohydrates (sugar) alone. From a certain range, the energy supply is increasingly achieved through antioxidative (anaerobic, without oxygen).
However, lactate accumulates as a waste product in the muscle and can be measured in the blood. The measurement is usually made in the capillary blood and is taken from the earlobe. In order to ensure the highest possible standardization, a few points must be taken into account in performance diagnostics.
- The preload should always remain the same for performance diagnostics. Strenuous sporting activity on the test day should be avoided completely. Even two days before the test, the training should not reach its performance limits.
- Your diet should also be as similar as possible before each lactate level test. The last meal should be a maximum of 4 hours before the test and should be as rich in carbohydrates as possible. If carbohydrates are removed from the body, the lactate curve shifts to the right, suggesting increased performance.
- The wearing of sporty clothes is self-explanatory.
- Possible results of an already performed test are recommended.
