Before we move into 2026, we want to look back at 2025 and summarize the year in one place. Here’s our 2025 wrap-up.

In 2025, we focused on three things: access, scale, and confidence. That meant lowering the barrier to start testing, enabling assessments that can run at scale to grow your business 24/7, and strengthening the scientific + educational foundation—so the insights you deliver are practical, reliable, and easier to act on.

At a glance, 2025 was about helping you:

  • Start testing easy and faster—and run it with less friction
  • Scale metabolic assessments with less manual work
  • Make improvements visible and easy to communicate to your clients
  • Reinforce confidence with science (and open the door for more research)
  • Apply insights with confidence through practical education

If your goal is to turn testing data into insights athletes value—and use that clarity to drive real performance gains and grow a stronger performance service—this wrap-up shows what’s now in place and what you can start using today.

Let’s begin. 

1. INSCYD × CARDIOWORLD × NOVA: Lower the barrier to lactate testing

In 2025, we partnered with CARDIOWORLD (Europe) and NOVA (US) to make lactate testing easier and more profitable to run. By bringing the meter, consumables, and INSCYD software together in one place, coaches and labs can get started faster and run testing consistently. 

NOVA is the direct manufacturer of the Nova Lactate Plus Meter, supplying athletes, coaches, and labs globally.

CARDIOWORLD is Europe’s exclusive importer of the Nova LACTATE PLUS analyzer and consumables, supporting athletes, coaches, and labs across Europe with fast access to lactate measurement technology.

What you can get:

  1. Discount on lactate strips/products (up to 15%) — via NOVA directly in the US, and via CARDIOWORLD in the EU (Europe’s exclusive importer of the Nova LACTATE PLUS analyzer and consumables).
  2. A free lactate meter option to get started fast (Nova LACTATE PLUS).
  3. A simple “one-stop” setup — get everything needed to start or upgrade lactate testing, plus INSCYD software, in a single trusted place.

Why this matters in practice

  • Make lactate testing more profitable: Partnership pricing helps reduce the ongoing cost of strips, so regular testing can be delivered with healthier margins.
  • Turn Lactate Testing into lab-level performance assessment: INSCYD turns lactate values into a 360° physiological performance profile, including metrics like VO2max, VLamax, MLSS, LT1, and fat/carbohydrate combustion rates—so each test delivers a full picture of performance.
  • More reliable inputs: Nova LACTATE PLUS is scientifically validated for accuracy—so the lactate data you bring into INSCYD starts from a more reliable measurement base.

This partnership makes lactate testing easier to start and repeat—and more profitable to offer—by enabling coaches and labs to deliver a complete, lab-level performance assessment in INSCYD from a lactate test alone.

Want to benefit from the partnership? Book a free call with our performance team.

And learn more about what you can get just from lactate tests.

2. INSCYD × Velocity Integration: turn metabolic testing into a fully automated 24/7 revenue stream

We launched the INSCYD × Velocity integration to help cycling and triathlon coaches and labs move metabolic testing from a time-intensive, manual workflow to a fully automated, on-demand service—without losing the scientific depth of INSCYD analysis.

Velocity is a coach-centric virtual training platform built around video-based, coach-led training, including live instruction and group formats.

What the integration unlocks:

  • Testing that runs without you (24/7): Athletes execute tests anytime—results are delivered automatically to your INSCYD account, even outside your working hours.
  • On-demand, video-guided protocol: athletes can complete the test any time, following Sebastian Weber’s (Founder of INSCYD) video guidance inside Velocity to support consistent execution—without you needing to be present.
  • Automatic data transfer (Velocity → INSCYD): once the test is completed, athlete data flows automatically into INSCYD for analysis—removing manual steps and reducing the time between execution and results delivery.
  • Individual + group testing formats: Velocity supports group sessions so coaches can run multiple tests in the same environment.
  • The complete performance analysis output: the workflow is built with INSCYD’s scientifically validated Power Performance Decoder (PPD) to to generate a comprehensive metabolic profile from power data (including VO2max, VLamax, MLSS, LT1, fat + carbohydrate combustion rates, and more).

Why this matters in practice

  • Spend less time on execution and admin: automation reduces the need for protocol supervision and manual data processing—so you can focus on analysis, planning, and athlete consultation.
  • True on-demand testing: because execution doesn’t require you to be present live, athletes can test when it suits them—including outside office hours and across time zones.
  • Designed to be scalable and profitable: a way to scale metabolic testing as a repeatable service (including group formats).

Coaches who are not INSCYD users yet and are interested in implementing the INSCYD x VQ Velocity integration can start by scheduling a free demo with us.

INSCYD users can visit our Help Center article here to implement the integration immediately (please ensure you’re logged in to access the article)

If you’re an athlete interested in INSCYD testing, head over to Velocity, create your account, and go to the marketplace to select the INSCYD coaching group (coaches who can provide you with a full INSCYD metabolic profile)

3. 4-Day Hands-on Physiological Testing & Coach Education Camps: Sold Out Across 5 Locations Worldwide

Five stops. Five sell-outs. In 2025, we ran our 4-Day Coaching & Testing Camps, and every date filled up in Park City, Leuven, Frankfurt, Girona, and Manchester—a clear signal that coaches and performance labs are looking for more hands-on testing practice and more practical application, not just theory.

This wasn’t a “sit and listen” format. The camp focused on testing athletes, applying test data to training, running lactate and VO₂ testing in practical environments, and learning how to interpret metabolic data for better training decisions—working directly with athletes, sharpening testing skills, and bringing the learning back into everyday coaching and lab practice.

What participants gained

  • Hands-on learning with athletes and coaches in the field—including testing athletes, applying test data to training, and understanding individual athlete needs.
  • Practical experience in metabolic testing—conducting lactate and VO₂ testing at the running track and on the road (including practical sessions using COSMED K5).
  • Confidence in interpretation and application—learning how to translate metabolic data into training programs with high practical relevance.
  • Clearer physiological reasoning for training decisions—understanding mechanisms that inform when an athlete benefits more from low-intensity/high-volume work versus more intensive interval sessions.

The camp program included 10 sessions on core metabolism topics, 7 sessions on adaptation to training, 2 practical testing sessions (VO₂ + lactate sampling using COSMED K5), and 5 sessions on interpretation + application (zones, limiting factors, nutrition).

Because feedback was incredible in 2025, we’ll bring these camps back next year—with even more practical application. Stay tuned for the announcement.

4. Power-Performance Decoder Update: Lab-Level Performance Assessment Just From Power/Speed

We shipped a major update to our Power-Performance Decoder (PPD) testing technology—designed to make testing faster, more flexible, and more accurate, while adding built-in validation so you can trust results with less back-and-forth.

What PPD is: PPD is INSCYD’s remote performance test that turns power (cycling) or speed (running) into a structured physiological assessment—without requiring lactate sampling or measured VO₂ during the test.

With the update, running tests can also be executed using distance + time (and cycling with time + average power)—so you can run testing with a power meter, a GPS watch, or even a stopwatch when needed.

What’s new in PPD

  • Shorter, smarter protocols: PPD v3 uses two short sprints (~16–24s) plus two efforts between 3–8 minutes—with flexibility to choose durations that fit the athlete and environment.
  • Manual effort input: you can enter distance + time (running) or time + average power (cycling) without uploading a FIT file—useful for track-based or group testing where you just need a stopwatch and measured distance.
  • Auto-correction of effort selection: when you mark an effort, PPD can scan nearby data to find a more accurate segment—then lets you choose between your marked segment and the optimized one for consistency.
  • Traffic Light accuracy check: key outputs (VO₂max, VLamax, Critical Power/Speed) are flagged green / yellow / red so you can quickly see whether a test meets expected accuracy or should be reviewed/repeated.
  • No mandatory file upload: creating and completing a PPD test no longer requires a FIT file—you can complete tests via manual entry when needed.

Why this matters in practice

  • Less time spent testing, more time coaching: the updated protocol removes the long effort and keeps the testing workflow shorter.
  • More flexibility in the real world: you can adapt efforts to terrain, facilities, and athlete preferences without being forced into one rigid duration.
  • Higher-confidence results: the update is designed to increase accuracy and adds effort correction + validation checks to reduce preventable errors.

PPD is built to deliver a remote, lab-level style performance assessment from power or speed—so coaches and labs can assess athletes without requiring lactate sampling or VO₂ measurement during the test.

With new PPD, testing is shorter, more flexible (including manual inputs), and easier to validate with built-in accuracy checks.

Want to see what the workflow looks like and how the outputs show up in INSCYD? Book a demo.

5. Performance Development Chart Update: Fully Customizable Graphs to Show Progress Over Time

We updated the Performance Development Chart so you can fully customize how you visualize an athlete’s development—easy to compare, and built to communicate progress clearly to athletes and stakeholders.

Performance Development Chart let you track and present development across key performance and physiological metrics—so you can go beyond “single-number” tracking and tell a clearer story of how an athlete is progressing over time.

What’s new (and what it enables)

  • Compare related metrics side-by-side with time-scaled or evenly-spaced views, and create up to 3 personalized charts per sport.
  • Multi-metric charts with up to 3 Y-axes—so you can track how different systems develop together (e.g., VO₂max and VLamax, or threshold markers alongside power outputs).
  • Choose what matters (nothing more, nothing less): select from INSCYD’s physiological metric library, group complementary metrics, and use sport-specific configurations.
  • Make it usable in real workflows: interactive navigation (hover + zoom) and PDF report integration so your customized charts can show up directly in athlete reports.

Why this matters in practice

  • Clearer progress stories = higher athlete confidence. When athletes can see and understand what’s changing, they stay more engaged in the process.
  • Better decisions, with more context. Multi-metric views help you interpret development patterns that single-metric tracking can miss.

Performance Development Chart help you turn physiological development into visuals that are personalized, explainable, and report-ready—so your athletes don’t just see “numbers,” they understand their progression.

Get a guided walkthrough of the Performance Development Chart and discover fully custom-branded reports.

6. Research & scientific commitment: 2 Peer-reviewed Publications + INSCYD for Research Access

In 2025, INSCYD’s scientific rigor showed up in two tangible ways:

  1. peer-reviewed research published using INSCYD in applied performance contexts.
  2. dedicated INSCYD for Research inquiry path—so universities and research groups can explore using INSCYD in their studies with clearer expectations and documentation. 

Published research in 2025

Published in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, this pilot study tested the reliability of estimating buffer capacity from capillary blood lactate and pH measured before/after exhaustive cycling. Post-exercise inputs showed good-to-excellent reliability, while pre-exercise inputs were poor, and the authors note validity vs gold-standard methods still needs further study

The study built physiological profiles from swim/run testing and applied them to predict super-sprint triathlon performance, identifying metabolic steady-state markers as key predictors in their model. The metabolic profile calculations were performed using INSCYDю

What we launched for the research community: INSCYD for Research

Also we introduced INSCYD for Research—a dedicated way for universities, research groups, and scientific teams to request access to INSCYD for academic and applied studies. 

It’s designed to make it easier to evaluate fit upfront by clearly outlining what researchers can expect: scientifically validated analytical software, transparent methodological documentation to support reproducible protocols, and support for integrating INSCYD into study design and data workflows (with optional scientific guidance).

What research teams can get:

  • Access to scientifically validated analytical software for academic/applied research
  • Transparent methodological documentation to support research protocols
  • Support integrating INSCYD into study design + data workflows (with optional scientific guidance)
"Our goal is to enable researchers to run high-quality, reproducible studies without barriers created by equipment constraints or methodological capacity."
Sebastian Weber
Founder of INSCYD

How collaboration works (high level): 

  1. submit inquiry
  2. scientific team review & follow-up
  3. align scope and get access to the functions/analyses needed.

7. YouTube in 2025: Consistent Video Education Content—driven by what coaches ask for

In 2025, we started publishing educational videos consistently on YouTube—and the response from the community has been a big part of why we’re continuing. Our goal was simple—make key performance concepts easier to learn in a format you can consume quickly, revisit when needed, and share with athletes or colleagues.

A big thank you to everyone who watched, liked, and especially commented. Your questions and feedback help us choose what to cover next and where we should go deeper. We’ll keep publishing regularly in 2026—and we’re already preparing a few special releases.

If you don’t want to miss them, subscribe to the channel.

Three of the most popular videos from 2025:

Zone 2 Training Explained: Best Intensity for FatMax & Endurance

A practical breakdown of why “Zone 2 = X% of FTP” can miss the mark—and why dialing training to fat + carbohydrate combustion is what makes low-intensity work truly individual.

Lactate Clearance Explained: How to Recover Faster & Improve Performance

Why recovery isn’t just “easy” or “hard”: it’s duration + intensity—and lactate clearance helps inform both interval sessions and racing demands.

Why Your VO2max Interval Training Isn’t Working (And How to Fix It)

If you set VO2max intervals as a fixed % of threshold/FTP, different athletes can end up training at very different % of VO2max—so results stagnate even when the workout “looks right” on paper.

Subscribe to our YouTube to stay up to date with new videos (and what’s coming in 2026).

8. Webinar Library: expert sessions you can apply immediately (and our top webinars of 2025)

In 2025, we launched our Webinar Library—a dedicated place where you can explore our expert-led webinars and quickly find the sessions most relevant to you, including filters by sport (cycling, running, triathlon, skiing, and more). 

What you’ll find inside

  • Actionable, coach-ready frameworks (not just theory) you can implement right away.
  • Sessions grounded in high-performance practice, using scientific methods referenced in the materials as being used in elite environments (Tour de France teams, national federations, Olympic programs).

Top webinars in 2025:

Unf*ck Your Lactate Testing!

Built for coaches and labs who already test (or want to start), but feel their protocols or interpretation are “fuzzy.” It breaks down protocol choices, lactate dynamics, common blind spots (including body composition + meter accuracy), and how to extract more than “thresholds” from lactate testing.

Journey to Paralympic Gold: USA Triathlon Coach Parker Spencer’s Strategy

A case-based session featuring USA Triathlon coach Parker Spencer and Paralympic gold medalist Chris Hammer, covering how physiology and performance data informed decisions across swim, bike, and run—plus how metabolic profiling with INSCYD supported the training strategy.

Master Race-Day Pacing and Nutrition for Endurance Athletes

A practical methodology for building individualized pacing + fueling strategies using metabolic profiling—covering race-demand analysis, converting speed to power requirements, and calculating carbohydrate balance for long events. The webinar materials describe a prediction model with 99% accuracy in race time forecasting (as presented in the webinar).

9. Popular blog reads: moving beyond %FTP for Zone 2, Threshold, and HIIT

In 2025, some of our most-read educational posts focused on a core coaching problem: using one FTP number to prescribe multiple training goals—and why that often leads to mismatched intensities, stalled progress, and unclear adaptations. 

The top topics coaches dug into:

The Limitations of FTP-Based Zone 2 Training: Why It Fails Endurance Athletes

Why “% of FTP = Zone 2” can break down across athlete profiles—and why two athletes with the same FTP can require very different Zone 2 intensities to get the same adaptation.

Why You Don’t get faster Threshold Intervals— And How Physiology Based Training can Fix it for You

Why threshold intervals can plateau when “threshold” is treated as a single number—and how a physiology-first approach changes what you prescribe and why.

HIIT Training: Intensity based on %FTP and its shortcoming

Why prescribing VO₂max/Zone 5 intervals as a fixed % of FTP often produces sub-par VO₂max training effects for some athletes—or unwanted glycolytic activation for others. The post walks through a practical example of two athletes with similar FTP but very different VO₂max/VLamax profiles, and argues for prescribing HIIT based on VO₂max engagement (~90%+) while keeping glycolytic contribution (VLamax utilization) under control.

Closing: What’s ready for you going into 2026

2025 was about making physiological testing access, scale, and confidence—so you can deliver clearer insights to athletes and build a stronger performance service around them.

If you’re heading into 2026 with any of these goals, the building blocks are now in place:

  • Start faster: get a practical lactate-testing setup (meter + consumables + software) and turn those tests into a complete performance assessment inside INSCYD.
  • Scale without adding hours: offer remote metabolic testing that can run without live supervision—and reduce manual admin through automation.
  • Show progress clearly: turn development into report-ready visuals that help athletes understand what’s changing and stay bought into the process.
  • Reinforce confidence: lean on published research use cases, and a clearer pathway for research teams to access INSCYD.
  • Keep learning: apply concepts through webinars, videos, and educational articles—built to support real coaching decisions.

If you want to see how this looks in your workflow, book a demo. We’ll walk you through the best starting point for your setup (lactate testing, PPD remote testing, or automation via Velocity), and show how INSCYD turns raw data into a full lab-level performance assessment + branded reports.

And if you want to stay close to what’s coming next, subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on YouTube, and keep an eye on new webinars—we’re continuing the education push in 2026.

Book a demo: turn testing into a scalable, client-ready performance service

See how INSCYD helps you move from raw test data to a complete physiological assessment—so you can start testing faster, deliver clearer insights, and grow a repeatable service across athletes.

Explore Other Blog Posts

Preview webinar Swimming performance: test protocols & most valued results

Swimming performance: test protocols & most valued results

In this webinar, we share which performance metrics make the difference in swimming, how you can measure those and how you put them into practice. Watch the webinar: Agenda timestamps: [01:29] Physiological testing in swimming: which metrics are of interest? [02:40] VO2max – Maximum aerobic performance. How to test VO2max without measuring it during the…

Read more
Runners underperform due to hidden potential - Graphic

Runners underperform due to hidden potential

Too many runners are underperforming because they don’t know what they are capable of. In this article, we boost your confidence, by showing you exactly how to find out what you’re already able to accomplish. More importantly: we discover precisely what you need to work on in training to increase performance even further. Let’s get…

Read more
A good VO2max charts by age, gender, sport and athlete fitness

A Good VO2max Charts by: Age, Gender, Sport and Athlete Fitness

Whether a VO2max of 50 is good depends on your age and gender. Moreover, while average VO2max values tell you something about your health, athletes should compare their VO2max with other athletes, not the general population. That’s why in this article we provide numerous VO2max comparison charts, based on age and gender, for both athletes…

Read more

INSCYD partners up with cycling team Corendon-Circus for 2020 season

Salenstein, Switzerland. September 26th. INSCYD — the world’s most advanced software for performance analysis — has signed a three -year contract with the Pro Continental cycling team Corendon-Circus ahead of the next cycling seasons. INSCYD will provide the team with its cutting-edge technology for performance analysis. The team’s Performance Manager Kristof De Kegel — who has…

Read more