Determination of the critical power and anaerobic work capacity of canoeists on an arm ergometer, using two linear equations

Abstract

ABSTRACT The objective of the present study was to investigate the infl uence of two linear models on the determination of critical potential (CP) and anaerobic work capacity (AnWC) of canoeists evaluated on an arm ergometer. Eight male canoeists (17.1 ± 1.1 years; 63.3 ± 6.5 kg; 173.4 ± 4.3 cm) volunteered to take part in the study. Two different linear equations were employed to calculate CP and AnWC: power-1/time and work-time, using three different power levels (Wlim) and their respective times to exhaustion (tlim). The athletes underwent six test sessions on an arm ergometer at 70 rpm until voluntary exhaustion, with and interval of 24 hours between sessions, at two different intensities each day, with a minimum interval of 90 minutes. The statistical analysis employed descriptive statistics, Student’s t test and Pearson’s linear correlation (P < 0.05). The power-1/time equation produced a signifi cantly higher CP than the work-time equation (144.6 ± 17.3 W vs. 141.9 ± 16.5 W, respectively; P < 0.05), whereas AnWC was significantly greater when calculated by work-time than when calculated by power-1/time (12.8 ± 2.9 kJ vs. 13.9 ± 3.2 kJ; respectively, P < 0.05). The coefficient of correlation between power-1/time and work-time for CP and AnWC was r=0.98 and r=0.92, respectively (P < 0.05). Despite this high level of correlation between the models in terms of CP and AnWC, the results suggest that adopting different models appears to interfere in the calculation of CP and AnWC of exercise on an arm ergometer.