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This morning I went to UB again for the 2nd day of VO2 Max testing. Today was much easier - warm-up on a bike, then pedal “like a bat out of hell” (they use such scientific terms) up to about 170rpm. Then they press a button and 5.7kg of resistance is added to the wheel. All of this data is recorded on a computer, and they see how quickly my heart rate goes up and I come to exhaustion. After that was 4 minutes of cool-down where they watched my heart rate come back down. So aside from warm-up and cool-down, it was a 30 second test today.

They did confirm that I’m the oldest participant in their study, but I also have one of the highest VO2 Max readings of the group. So even though I’m old, I know how to breathe efficiently.

Friday I go back, when I’ll get to ride the bike as long as I can while keeping up a pace of 70 rpm. They say it can be 15-25 minutes. I’m a bit nervous about this one.

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 10:39 am and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I started my participation as a human guinea pig in a VO2 max study at UB this morning. It was quite an experience.

They started with the typical stuff: height, weight, questionnaire, body fat measurements, then fitted me for a crazy headpiece that held a mouthpiece right near my mouth and hooked up a heart rate monitor. After a few minutes of warm-up on the bike, they started the testing, plugging my nose which forced me to breathe only using my mouth, which I’m not used to at all. As the time went on, they kept checking my heart rate and perceived level of exertion. Once I thought I was at a certain level, they began collecting what I exhaled in giant sacs. All the while, I had to maintain a pace of 70rpm on the bike as they increased the resistance on the bike.

My mouth got very, very dry and the mouthpiece filled with saliva (yummy, eh?). It was like breathing through a snorkel with a bit of water in there. When I felt like I had a minute left, they made the final adjustments and got the last bit of data. It’s hard to think, “I have 1 minute left” but I had to make the call at some point. I could have kept going, but maintaining the 70rpm would have been hard.

Then they emptied the sacs through some fancy equipment which measured how much I exhaled and how much of that was oxygen versus carbon dioxide.

There were other participants coming & going as I was there, and I felt like the oldest and most out-of-shape person in the group. I probably am, too. I don’t have any data yet, but to use as a baseline:

The average young untrained male will have a VO2 max of approximately 3.5 litres/minute and 45 ml/kg/min. The average young untrained female will score a VO2 max of approximately 2.0 litres/minute and 38 ml/kg/min. … World class male athletes, cyclists and cross-country skiers typically exceed 80 ml/kg/min and a rare few may exceed 90 ml/kg/min for men and 70 ml/kg/min for women. (via Wikipedia)

After more testing this week, there’s nothing next week, followed by 6 weeks of training then a final week of testing. As I get data about myself, I’ll share it. Then we’ll see if I can improve on those figures over the next 8 weeks.

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 11:51 am and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Let me start with last night - after dinner, we ran out to Cub Scouts then home for a little more work. A script that I had written & started just after 5pm was still going at 9pm (stopped at 2:50am - have to start it up again). Anyway, I was hungry, but stuck to my diet and didn’t eat last night. That was a mistake.

This morning I headed to the gym for my plyometrics class and was OK for the first 45 minutes, but didn’t have enough energy for the final 15. I think I need to eat on Monday and Wednesday nights, just to have the energy to get through class the next morning.

Lost tonight - can’t wait

Oh, and thanks to Chris for fixing the sifr on my blog. The pretty titles were not linking in Firefox. I’m not going to link to his site, because I don’t want to share him with anyone else! The fix was to upgrade to sifr 2.0.5 and re-export the swf movies. Simple enough (for him).

This entry was posted by Eric on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 8:52 am and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I’m now 2-1/2 weeks away from my next weigh-in, where I hope to be at 11% body fat. I was last tested in December and was at 12.5%. So what am I doing during this crunch time?

1. More water
2. No eating after dinner
3. More protein shakes
4. No skipping the gym because I’m tired
5. Overall eating better

Based on today’s weather, it doesn’t look like I’ll be running anytime soon. I hate running in the cold. I’m tempted to swim tomorrow, ’cause the weight area at my gym is closed. But I hate swimming.

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

The group I train with reached a whole new level of push-ups today, as we did 4-person group push-ups. We did this at the end of class, so were a bit tired, but still managed to do at least 3 together. I think we need a coach to keep us synchronized next time. Here’s what they look like:

With some more practice, I’m sure we can get 10 solid ones in a few weeks.

This entry was posted by Eric on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 8:32 am and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

It’s been a while, but last week I made an appointment to give blood today, so I went and was pleasantly surprised when they gave me a coupon for a free pound of coffee! Did I mention I LOVE coffee? Now, it’s Dunkin’ Donuts, and not Tim Hortons, but, that’s OK - still good stuff.

If you can, go to the Red Cross and give blood! Every 2 seconds, someone in the US is in need of blood. Blood cannot be made in a factory, so the only way for doctors to have blood ready for emergencies is from donations. There are a bunch of other reasons to give, too.

The one that isn’t mentioned is that it may reduce heart disease, especially in men. The blood in your body has been sitting around for a while - get rid of it and make some clean, healthy, strong, new blood.

It only hurts a little, and you get cookies when you’re done.

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.