Plenty of authors are emphasizing most cardio oxygen consumption (VO2max) as being necessary for wholesome ageing, so I believed I’d look into testing it. It’s costly to have achieved professionally, however there are a number of self-tests obtainable. I wished a biking one, and remembered there was one within the e-book Aerobics Program For Complete Nicely-Being written by Dr. Kenneth Cooper (usually referred to as the “father of aerobics”) again in 1982, nonetheless obtainable. Dr. Cooper turned 93 this 12 months and is himself a great commercial for wholesome ageing. He developed a 12 minute aerobics check for operating initially, however on this e-book additionally gave tables for swimming and biking.
Dr Cooper used knowledge from a lot of topics of assorted ages to correlate the outcomes of those checks to V02max. You may also simply evaluate your outcomes on the checks to his tables, which have classes “very poor” by way of “wonderful”. Sadly, the information stops on the “60+” class, however by plotting the outcomes and extrapolating, I estimated that to be within the wonderful class for biking at 70+, males have to attain a distance of better than 3.5 miles in 12 minutes (equal to common pace of over 17.5 mph). For those who don’t have the e-book, the biking outcomes are additionally right here and likewise proven under.
So I created a close-by flat loop, which is now on Strava as “Cooper TT North” (it’s a bit north of Morgan Hill, between Hale and Dougherty avenues), proven right here. I did this as a part of my experience yesterday morning, and coated the three.89 mile loop in 13:14, for a median pace of 17.63 mph, which is equal to masking 3.5 miles in 11.9 minutes). So primarily based on my estimate, I’m within the wonderful class for age 70+ (and in the course of the “good” class for 60+). That feels fairly good!
Dr, Cooper didn’t specify bike place in his e-book, however aerobars weren’t broadly obtainable within the early 80s, so I figured my higher-speed arrange on my recumbent, with a extremely reclined seat (not less than as aero as an upright time trial bike with aerobars), may be dishonest a bit in comparison with the information within the checks. So I used low rolling resistance tires however the extra upright “touring” seating place of my bike. I’ll repeat this check about as soon as a month and hopefully have the ability to enhance for some time, and not less than maintain my outcomes from degrading too rapidly over time.
Listed here are the tables for the Cooper bike check:
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