ReviewSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)2024
Critical Power and Maximal Lactate Steady State in Cycling: "Watts" the Difference?
Review in Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The 3-min all-out test in cycling: a systematic review and meta-analysis on its reliability and validity.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Pooled it
- The Physiology of Contemporary Olympic Cross-Country Mountain Biking: A Systematic Review.Sports medicine - open · 2026Pooled it
- Field-based tests for determining critical speed among runners and its practical application: a systematic review.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Cardiorespiratory and metabolic stress responses to acute high-intensity interval training anchored to critical power or maximal heart rate.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- The Measurement and Application of Critical Speed and D' in Running: A Scoping Review.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- Standardizing moderate- and vigorous-intensity exercise doses by physiological strain: an exploratory randomized cross-over study.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Article
- From diagnostics to prediction: development and validation of a multi-domain power-duration model.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Article
- Small muscle mass aerobic exercise in health and disease: Unique insights into muscle vascular and metabolic control and performance.Experimental physiology · 2026Review
- RACLET: the Ramp Above Critical Level Endurance Test to evaluate critical power in cycling.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Article
- Article
- Durability as an index of endurance exercise performance: Methodological considerations.Experimental physiology · 2025Review
- Modeling lactate threshold in cycling-influence of sex, maximal oxygen uptake, and cost of cycling in young athletes.European journal of applied physiology · 2025Article
- Incline dependence of the power-duration relationship in cross-country skiing.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
From a physiological perspective, the delineation between steady-state and non-steady-state exercise, also referred to as the maximal metabolic steady state, holds paramount importance for evaluating athletic performance and designing and monitoring training programs. The critical power and the maximal lactate steady state are two widely used indices to estimate this threshold, yet previous studies consistently reported significant discrepancies between their associated power outputs. These findings have fueled the debate regarding the interchangeability of critical power and the maximal lactate steady state in practice. This paper reviews the methodological intricacies intrinsic to the determination of these thresholds, and elucidates how inappropriate determination methods and methodological inconsistencies between studies have contributed to the documented differences in the literature. Through a critical examination of relevant literature and by integration of our laboratory data, we demonstrate that differences between critical power and the maximal lactate steady state may be reconciled to only a few Watts when applying appropriate and strict determination criteria, so that both indices may be used to estimate the maximal metabolic steady-state threshold in practice. To this end, we have defined a set of good practice guidelines to assist scientists and coaches in obtaining the most valid critical power and maximal lactate steady state estimates.
Indexed as
Identifiers
39196486What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.