What I learned during my VO2 Max Test tonight (Page 2)

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Edited by PennState 2007-10-11 8:22 AM

I must be a dork too....becuase I could read this stuff all day. 

You wanted other numbers but I've only heard of a few people's. Lance Armstrong mentioned in on of his books that when he was "out of shape" he tested just over 60 and then went out, trained hard for a week, and came back in the lab and tested just over 70. I have no idea what his value tested is.

Somebody on here, I think it was bryancd, tested in the 60s as well. I guess you'll have to wait until after Saturday to hear from him though.

This thread is making me curious. Anyone know how to get your VO2max tested and about how much it would cost?

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This is great stuff...I gotta run to work & I'll reply later tonight.

The other part of that is that glycogen can be burned aerobically OR anaerobically! There are proponents who say that the "lactate threshold" has no direct correlation with the conversion to mostly anaerobic activity because a by product of aerobic glycogen metabolism is pyruvate...which can be converted to lactate when pyruvate exists in excess.

But the distinction is only a technical one, becuase studies still show that "something" happens at a magical point referred to as teh anaerobic threshold. And that point is still used to prescribe exercise intensity even if it is not entirely explaned by the coversion to anaerobic metabolosim.

Those who are in this camp do not have a better proposed "anchor" from which to base exercise intensity, so even though some disagree with it's underlying biochemical significance...(ie is the anaerobic threshold really occuring at a true anaerobic treshold?) there is still no recommended substitute measure by which to base exercise prescription from.

Did that make any sense at all?

In theory, yes. Everyone has a given maximum amount of oxygen that their body is able to use at any given point in time. Whether or not they are able to reach an exercise intensity that would be at their maximum O2 uptake (VO2 max) is dependant upon things like motivation, fitness, disability,e tc.

For example, someone with arthritis, back pain, etc may not be able to exercise at an intensity to even reach VO2 max. If this test were done with expired gas readings, you would be able to look at a plot of the oxygen uptake (easily measured with expired gases) and see if there was a plateau.

An analgous problem is seen all the time wiht cardiac stress testing. Someone is put on a treadmill and is unable to exercise to the point where their potential 85% of MHR is reached (yes, they use the 220-age or 226-age in cardiac exercise testing...correct me if I'm wrong). So there is no way to tell if the heart muscle functions normally with increased oxygen demand...because the patient phsically can't reach it.

So then a second test is required to chemically induce cardiac stress and see if there is abnormality.

So Jorge, you're couch potatoe description is true in theory, and I would geuss that most youngish people actually WOULD reach their max or peak...you would have to look at teh output to know for sure.

However, even with sub "VO2 Max training", LSD training still improves the ability of the muscles to extract oxygen from the blood in the form of increased capillaries, increased mitochondria, increased oxidative enzymes, etc. So they would improve their VO2 max by doing only LSD training. This is step 3 of the 3 steps listed below

VO2 Max intervals mostly affect the total blood volume, and therefore increase the Stroke Volume of the heart, increasing the Central Delivery of Oxygen (step 2).

Factors in Oxygen use by active muscle:
1) Uptake by the blood (respiratory)
2) Central Delivery (heart rate, stroke volume, hemoglobin)
3) Peripheral uptake of O2 by the muscles (capillary density, mitochondrial density, proportions of type 1 to type 2 fibers, oxidative enzymes, etc.)


Edited by AdventureBear 2007-10-11 10:35 PM

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yes, training at or sub MLSS will do this in particular. check this table from Coggan (scroll down), I think it is pretty neat. http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/power411/levels.asp

Got it...now I understand what you were saying. Regardless, all you'd have to do is plot the data to see if they were able to exercise beyond the point where the VO2 max was reached. If they terminated the test and you plotted the VO2 and it continued to increase right up to the end of the test then they didn't reach their Max.




Edited by AdventureBear 2007-10-12 10:44 PM

FYI, I did two additional tests today in class.

One was a submax test, called the Astrand-Rhyming test on a cycle ergomenter, no expired gases, just HR taken over 6 minutes, and then you look up stuff in a table.

The idea is to see if you can predict your VO2 Max based on a sub-max VO2 test.

My predicted VO2 Max with this test was about 37.5 ml/kg/mn or about 8% lower than last week's tested max on a treadmil of 40.4 ml/kg/min

The other test was just a prediction equation based on your gender, age, weight and self-identified activity scale from 1-7 (the top number, 7 was bascially anything greater than 10 miles of running or more than 3-4 hours of similar activity per week) I chose 6 to be conservative as I've been biking up to 4 hours a week.

The result of that equation was a mere 33ml/kg/min, almost 20% lower than what I tested. So go figure.

Next week's test is the last one, and is a Peak VO2 test on a cycle ergometer. That's the one I'm most intersted in.

THanks for the reminder. I'll look up the details, but my VO2 Max on the bike was just under the 40.4 I tested on the treadmill. I was a little dissapointed and figured since I was bike trained and not run trained my VO2 max would be similar...but biking uses fewer muscles than running, so less muslce mass activation means less total body oxygen required.

I'll post the actual numbers maybe tomorrow.

Thanks for asking!