Loads 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 completed professionally, however there are a number of self-tests out there. I wished a biking one, and remembered there was one within the e book Aerobics Program For Whole Nicely-Being written by Dr. Kenneth Cooper (usually known as the “father of aerobics”) again in 1982, nonetheless out there. Dr. Cooper turned 93 this yr and is himself a great commercial for wholesome getting old. He developed a 12 minute aerobics take a look at 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 varied ages to correlate the outcomes of those assessments to V02max. You may as well simply evaluate your outcomes on the assessments to his tables, which have classes “very poor” by way of “wonderful”. Sadly, the info 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 larger than 3.5 miles in 12 minutes (equal to common velocity 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 trip yesterday morning, and lined the three.89 mile loop in 13:14, for a median velocity of 17.63 mph, which is equal to protecting 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 midst 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 out there within the early 80s, so I figured my higher-speed arrange on my recumbent, with a extremely reclined seat (no less than as aero as an upright time trial bike with aerobars), is perhaps dishonest a bit in comparison with the info within the assessments. 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 no less than maintain my outcomes from degrading too rapidly over time.
Listed here are the tables for the Cooper bike take a look at:
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