Physical Therapy Guinea Pig

Going against my New Year's Resolution, I have agreed to (at least loosely) keep track of my mileage, caloric intake, and other fitness for a project of four doctoral students in the Physical Therapy department at The University of South Dakota. I'll be taking a test every six weeks between now and the Highway 212 Gut Check in August.

I'll be the first to tell you that I haven't trained hard at all this winter. Commuting and Spin Classes have been the extent of my training. So, I knew my baseline test was not going to be stellar. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out. Hopefully the tests do nothing but get better as my training starts really picking up now.

I've never been big into the study of VO2 max or anything like that, so I'm not even sure what some of the numbers I'm about to post mean, but I thought that I'd throw them out here for those of you who have any interest in my training leading up to the Gut Check in August.

If any of you are huge into reading what these numbers mean, let me know! I'm sure that the students and Professor Pat Hauer will let me know more as we progress as well.

The test started (on the bike) at 10 watts increasing by 10 watts each minute. My "predicted" output was 236 watts. I did fine until about 280 watts and then it became a bit of a struggle. I pushed into the 310 watt category before my heart rate red-lined and I had to shut down. I still managed to do 131% of expected for somebody in my advanced years.

The VO2 readings are what I don't understand very much. After talking to a friend, who is also a Physical Therapist, he said the number should probably be in the 40's for me and I'm guessing that he's right. The numbers I have is 4255 mL/min as my V02 Max, which I believe should put me at 42.5 L/min. This was 136% of expected (3119 mL/min or 31.2 L/min).

Below are the readings per stage. There was to be a blood pressure rating, but that failed but hopefully will be working for the next test for even more fun results. I was half way through 310 watts when I shut it down.