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Endurance fitness swansea ma9/7/2023 ![]() To complete a fast marathon or bike race, you do need a high VO₂max, but, more importantly, you should be able to sustain a high percentage of your VO₂max for extended periods of time. ![]() Even the most elite endurance athletes can only exercise at their VO₂max for a few minutes. This is not a practical upper limit, however. VO₂max is, of course, an important contributor to performance because it sets the theoretical upper limit for prolonged endurance exercise. This means that VO₂max is, in fact, a poor measure of performance in circumstances where it is commonly used. Also, after a period of training, the change in VO₂max is not at all related to changes in exercise performance. The correlation between VO₂max and exercise performance is good when you look at people with a wide range of VO₂max values.Ĭonversely, VO₂max is a poor predictor of performance when you only consider athletes of similar ability. The highest documented VO₂max is 97.5ml/kg/min in an elite cyclist. Elite endurance athletes can have VO₂max values about three times higher than inactive people (90ml/kg/min vs 30ml/kg/min). ![]() There is a wide variation in VO₂max between people, mainly explained by genetics and exercise history. Although, it is important to note that this method of accounting for body size is an estimate at best and can often be very misleading. It is usually expressed in millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of body mass per minute (ml/kg/min), to remove the confounding effect of body size. The highest value achieved is termed VO₂max. Participants start exercising at a low intensity, after which the intensity increases slowly until the participant cannot go any further because of exhaustion (many readers will be familiar with the format of the dreaded bleep test, which is similar).ĭuring the test, participants breathe through a tube connected to an oxygen analyser to measure the rate of oxygen usage (VO₂). The tests for measuring VO₂max are similar today. But, although VO₂max is often used in athletes and rarely for routine health checks, the use of VO₂max as a predictor of performance is actually much weaker than its use as a predictor of health.ĪV Hill, the father of VO₂max. This makes sense as endurance athletes need to have a good ability to take up and use oxygen to generate the energy to perform exercise.Īthletes with a higher VO₂max can generate more energy, work at a higher intensity, and perform better than athletes with a lower VO₂max. ![]() VO₂max is also used as a performance measure for endurance athletes. If you thought VO₂max was just for athletes, you’d be partly right. Intuitively, this does not make much sense: most people go through life without ever needing to reach their VO₂max. ![]() In fact, VO₂max is the best predictor of your risk, at a given point in time, of getting chronic diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes or certain cancers, and the best predictor of your chances of living a long and healthy life. The greater this is, the better your health. This measure tells you your maximum (max) rate (V) of oxygen (O₂) uptake and use during exercise. If you could pick one measure to evaluate your health, what would you pick? Blood pressure? Cholesterol? These are commonly measured by your GP, but there is something that is more informative: maximal aerobic capacity, otherwise known as VO₂max. ![]()
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