Why EPOC?

Today I am going to briefly discuss why EPOC might be of interest when monitoring training load. My motivation for this article is that today I received a Suunto T6c and will start 'playing' with it tomorrow to see how it shapes up. As mentioned in a previous post, it has been a while since I have used a Suunto HR monitor, but I did like the EPOC feature then. 

So lets talk EPOC.

Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) is a physiological measure of the oxygen consumed in excess of resting requirements after exercise. Basically, it provides a measure as to the demand of a training session.

Now when I talk about EPOC, I am really talking about predicted EPOC, as an exact measure of EPOC is only possible by analysing respiratory gases during lab testing. Suunto uses some equations to calculate predicted EPOC from heart rate during training. From the HR measure it is able to predict VO2 and compare that to the users predicted VO2 max.

All sound a bit complicated? Well lets cut to the chase and see why this might be interesting for an athlete. One of the key challenges for an athlete when it comes to maximising training, is to determine what is an appropriate training load. By calculating EPOC, we can get an indication as to the actual training load of the session. EPOC is especially useful for monitoring the load of intensity based sessions, while it is not so effective for low intensity training.

As you can see in the diagram below, EPOC increases rapidly at high intensities while are intensities of less than 60% of max VO2 or HR, the accumulation is quite slow. High EPOC values are driven more so by high intensity, than long duration sessions. That is why EPOC can provide a great measure of your training load in intensity based sessions, but isn't a great method of assessing load on long slow runs.

EPOC can be beneficial in two ways:

1. We can monitor EPOC during the session. This allows the session to be stopped when a certain load/EPOC has been reached. For example, you might be aiming to complete 10x2minute efforts, but you are really running them hard and thus the intensity is higher than planned. You know that an EPOC of 180 is high for you, so when you see this is reached after 7 efforts, you decide to just do one more and avoid the risk of over doing it.
2. You can analyse EPOC post-session. By downloading your data, you can track your EPOC over time, see what types of sessions are the most demanding, and adjust your recovery to get the response you are after. 

The Suunto T4c actually does this for you and monitors EPOC and provides 'coaching' advice on how hard your sessions should be based on your last sessions.

So without trialling the new Suunto T6c, based on our analysis of EPOC, we can say that it would be very beneficial for runners focussed on intensity sessions (half marathon and below) but maybe a bit limited in it's analysis of training load in those long endurance sessions that are the staple diet for a marathoner. 

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