Research Of VO₂max Assessing Indicators And Criteria

Objective:Through collating statistics of the literatures which using power bicycle or treadmill directly test subjects’VO2max and clearly propounded the assessing criteria of VO2max in the last three decades. Meanwhile, making direct testing of VO2max on60(36male,24female) Physical Education Majors students under different incremental load program. Analyzing and studying the experimental results and indicators and criteria of the literatures correspondingly, this paper aimed at understanding the status quo of our researcher selected VO2max assessing indicators and criteria and analyzing the applicability and rationality of the indicators and criteria, and attempted to provide certain theoretical and practical reference for VO2max.Methods:Determining heart rate, respiratory quotient, oxygen consumption, subjective feelings (RPE) and blood lactate concentration post-exercise and other indicators of60(36male,24female) Physical Education Majors students in exercise to exhaustion under different incremental load program, and analyzing the assessing indicators applied in Chinese literature which using power bicycle and exercise treadmill to test VO2max nearly30years corresponding to the statistic results of criteria. Simultaneously correspondingly analyzing the combination of experimental results and common indicators and criteria of literatures, to explore the reasonable assessing indicators and criteria of VO2max.Results:①At present, in China the assessing indicators of using power bicycle for the determination of V02max including heart rate, respiratory quotient, blood lactate concentration, exhaustion (subjective best efforts), peak oxygen uptake, oxygen uptake platform. A higher frequency of indicators and criteria in the literature are:heart rate,180beats/min or more; respiratory quotient greater than or equal to1.10; exhaustive (subjective best efforts), subjects have to exert maximum strength but inability to maintain the required load; oxygen uptake platform, when the load continues to increase oxygen uptake platform appeared.②It was not suitable to use maximum heart rate that age predicted as the criterion to assess VO2max’s appearance; maximum heart rate in the same form of exercise (power bicycle) different incremental load programs and different genders, showed none statistically significant differences, but the maximal heart rate in treadmill test was significantly higher than that in power bicycle test; in the same form of exercise (power bicycle) different incremental load programs, there was no gender differences in respiratory quotient, but as the incremental load increased in the unit time, respiratory quotient showed the higher trend, the maximum respiratory quotient in power bicycle test was significantly higher than that in treadmill test. Exhaustive (subjective best efforts) should be selected as a prerequisite for direct test of V02max, and should use subjective combined to objective indicators for determination. Blood lactate concentration was relatively easy to be achieved, and had little effect on the assessing results, its major role was to reflect the subjects’ maximum effort, therefore it should be used more in exhaustive assessing, and the value8mmol/L was more reasonable. Peak oxygen uptake should be applied in no significant oxygen uptake platform and some other special circumstances, and should fully consider the possible impact on the findings. VO2max showed significant gender and different forms of exercise (power bicycle and exercise treadmill) differences; at domestic the common selected values criteria of oxygen uptake platform, that oxygen uptake maximum at△VO2<150ml/min. was relatively reasonable.③VO2max assessing criteria of different indicators criteria combination had great impact on results. In the indicators’ combination oxygen uptake platform, must be elected to the combination, for its importance of VO2max; the subjective exhaustive standards that described in domestic literatures had no effect on assessing results; heart rate and respiratory quotient were the key indicators that affected VO2max assessing results, their selected values should be chose carefully according to the characteristics of subjects and the design of experiment program. The selection and collocation of indicators should give full consideration to the influencing factors and the interaction between indicators affected on the results, to avoid individual differences of one indicator’s compliance rate, in the combination of n indicators standards we can use that achieved of (n-1) and more as the assessing criteria.Conclusions:①Selected standard of each VO2max indicator was quite different, unity of indicators and criteria was poor, there were no unified or higher authoritative indexes and criteria to assess the appearance of VO2max.②Reasonable value of heart rate should be180-190(b/min), reasonable value of respiratory quotient should be between1.05-1.15; when using the power cycling for testing, heart rate should be selected the lower value within the reasonable range, while respiratory quotient should be selected the higher value within the reasonable range and as incremental load intensity increased the value should be slightly higher; contrary in using treadmill test, within reasonable range the heart rate should be the higher value, and the respiratory quotient should be the lower one.③For different subjects and programs we should reasonably use the combination of the indicators criteria and different requirements of the number that meet the standards to determine the VO2max criteria to get more accurate results.