A number of authors are emphasizing most cardio oxygen consumption (VO2max) as being necessary for wholesome growing older, so I assumed 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 guide 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 yr and is himself a superb commercial for wholesome growing older. He developed a 12 minute aerobics check for working initially, however on this guide additionally gave tables for swimming and biking.
Dr Cooper used information from a lot of topics of assorted ages to correlate the outcomes of those checks to V02max. You may as well simply evaluate your outcomes on the checks to his tables, which have classes “very poor” by way of “glorious”. Sadly, the info stops on the “60+” class, however by plotting the outcomes and extrapolating, I estimated that to be within the glorious class for biking at 70+, males have to attain a distance of larger than 3.5 miles in 12 minutes (equal to common pace of over 17.5 mph). For those who don’t have the guide, the biking outcomes are additionally right here and in addition 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 experience yesterday morning, and lined the three.89 mile loop in 13:14, for a mean pace of 17.63 mph, which is equal to protecting 3.5 miles in 11.9 minutes). So based mostly on my estimate, I’m within the glorious 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 guide, however aerobars weren’t broadly accessible within the early 80s, so I figured my higher-speed arrange on my recumbent, with a extremely reclined seat (a minimum of as aero as an upright time trial bike with aerobars), is likely to be dishonest a bit in comparison with the info 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 be capable to enhance for some time, and a minimum of hold my outcomes from degrading too rapidly over time.
Listed here are the tables for the Cooper bike check:
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