A whole lot of authors are emphasizing most cardio oxygen consumption (VO2max) as being essential for wholesome getting old, so I believed I’d look into testing it. It’s costly to have finished professionally, however there are a number of self-tests accessible. I wished a biking one, and remembered there was one within the ebook Aerobics Program For Whole Effectively-Being written by Dr. Kenneth Cooper (typically known as the “father of aerobics”) again in 1982, nonetheless accessible. Dr. Cooper turned 93 this 12 months and is himself an excellent commercial for wholesome getting old. He developed a 12 minute aerobics take a look at for working initially, however on this ebook additionally gave tables for swimming and biking.
Dr Cooper used knowledge from a lot of topics of varied ages to correlate the outcomes of those exams to V02max. It’s also possible to simply examine your outcomes on the exams to his tables, which have classes “very poor” by means 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 higher than 3.5 miles in 12 minutes (equal to common pace of over 17.5 mph). For people who don’t have the ebook, the biking outcomes are additionally right here and likewise proven beneath.
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 trip 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 based mostly on my estimate, I’m within the wonderful class for age 70+ (and in the midst of the “good” class for 60+). That feels fairly good!
Dr, Cooper didn’t specify bike place in his ebook, however aerobars weren’t extensively accessible within the early 80s, so I figured my higher-speed arrange on my recumbent, with a extremely reclined seat (at the least as aero as an upright time trial bike with aerobars), may be dishonest a bit in comparison with the information within the exams. So I used low rolling resistance tires however the extra upright “touring” seating place of my bike. I’ll repeat this take a look at about as soon as a month and hopefully be capable of enhance for some time, and at the least preserve my outcomes from degrading too shortly over time.
Listed here are the tables for the Cooper bike take a look at:
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