Quite a lot of authors are emphasizing most cardio oxygen consumption (VO2max) as being vital for wholesome growing old, so I believed I’d look into testing it. It’s costly to have carried out 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 Whole Nicely-Being written by Dr. Kenneth Cooper (typically referred to as the “father of aerobics”) again in 1982, nonetheless obtainable. Dr. Cooper turned 93 this yr and is himself an excellent commercial for wholesome growing old. 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 information from a lot of topics of assorted ages to correlate the outcomes of those exams to V02max. You may also simply evaluate your outcomes on the exams to his tables, which have classes “very poor” by means 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 realize a distance of higher 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 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 median pace of 17.63 mph, which is equal to overlaying 3.5 miles in 11.9 minutes). So primarily based 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 e-book, however aerobars weren’t extensively obtainable 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 info within the exams. 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 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 check:
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