Response to Goulding et al. (2022): are whole-body and local thresholds mechanistically linked?

Excerpt

We would like to thank Goulding et al.(2022) for the insights they provided in their letter to the editor, submitted in response to our longitudinal study on the interchangeable use of whole-body and local exercise thresholds (Caen et al. 2022). In their letter, the authors contest the existence of a mechanistic link between whole-body and local exercise thresholds, as it was put forward in our paper. In particular, they refute any systematic relationship between whole-body thresholds (e.g., critical power (CP), maximal lactate steady state (MLSS), respiratory compensation point (RCP)) and the NIRS-derived local breakpoint in deoxyhemoglobin concentration (i.e., m[HHb]_BP). …