A comparison between methods of measuring anaerobic work capacity

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between anaerobic work capacity (AWC) and anaerobic capacity (AC) from the Critical Power (CP) and ‘Wingate’ tests, respectively. A secondary purpose was to determine the reliability of AWC and CP. Twenty-five females (mean±s.d. = 21·88±2·49 years) volunteered to perform a ‘Wingate’ test and two Critical Power tests all on separate days. Anaerobic capacity was defined as the total work performed during the 30-second ‘Wingate’ test. The relationship between work limit (total work to exhaustion) and time limit (total time to exhaustion), calculated for each of the three work bouts of the CP test, was linear (r 2 =0·98−1·00) for all of the subjects. The slope and Y intercept of this relationship represented CP and AWC, respectively. Anaerobic capacity and AWC were significantly (p 0·05) differences between the test-retest means for CP or AWC. Test-retest correlations for CP (r=0·94) a...