If you’re in the North East, Northumbria University’s sport centre is offering health MOTs. The silver option includes a VO2 max test – if you’re that way inclined and like running until you almost collapse they’ll test you for £14. You can also get your body fat percentage measured in the same package.

details here

The University of Kent in Canterbury also does this, and it’s also £14 (if you’re a member of their sports centre) or £17 if not. Cheaper if you’re a student. Only found out after Googling it since watching that Horizon programme.

anywhere in London do it anyone?

Or sunny Essex?

I’d reckon it’ll be a sub-maximal vo2 test rather than a vo2 max test.

Feel free to come to Dublin if you want pain. I’ll charge you more mind you….

I can do pain in Aberystwyth too…

south coast anyone?

How much you charging in Aber LabMonkey, and any unis nearer to south east Wales offering similar?

south coast anyone?

http://www.brighton.ac.uk/chelsea/consultancy/ses/sss/assessment.php?PageId=511

Good spot Jon, I had just been wondering about this the other day. A mate has been picked to represent GBR at triathalon in his age group and was wondering about scientific training methods VO2 etc….

SBZ – what makes you say that??

I did a VO2 max test once.

I’d happily pay £17 NOT to ever go through that again. Jesus it hurt.

(plus there was a problem with the machine and i didn’t even get a proper result in th end – it came out as over 100 😆 )

dr_death – the levels of qualification of the people carrying out the tests and the duration of the tests as detailed on their site. 15 minutes for a vo2 test and bp check over what is included in the 15 minute package.

LabMonkey.. interesting if you do test and are into MTBing.. Could be an interesting conversation.

Plodtv – I went to a bloke at UWIC who seemed to want to start offering a service for tests, but I only did a Kingcycle test there, and it was hard to find. I had to talk to a bloke who my mate knew who had left and the receptionist put me in touch with his replacement.

dr_death – Member
Good spot Jon, I had just been wondering about this the other day. A mate has been picked to represent GBR at triathalon in his age group and was wondering about scientific training methods VO2 etc….

SBZ – what makes you say that??

If it is only a submax test, and wants a max test tell him to contact people in the sports science department directly. They might be willing to help out given your mate’s level of competition. I did one there about 7 years ago when they had to do x number to get some sort of accreditation to do them. I hate running as it is, so i absolutely hated doing a running VO2 max test.

and any unis nearer to south east Wales offering similar?

If you fancy a trip over the bridge you can get them done in the Human Performance Centre at Bath Uni.

Was reading an interesting review on testing for MTB racers, more and more looking like maximal values = no performance correlation, 4min anaerobic performance tests = better correlation.

So maybe look at asking them to take data from something like a 4min flat out trial, after a warmup, scale the resulting wattage against your weight, then come back and we can see how awesome you are.

Also kinda important to have done 4min trials prior to this to make sure the test on the day is the best you can do.

molgrips – YGM.

plodtv – please send me an email.

Edit: I am an exercise physiologist and endurance sport coach and I can provide physiological testing and such like if required. Email in profile for anybody who is interested.

Cheers, Jon

Can they do blood lactates and what not, surely that’s more useful, as VO2Max and fitness are not inextricably linked.

njee20 – Everything I do is from pulmonary gas exchange data (correlated to power output, and converted to HR [if needed]). So you get the precise gas exchange thresholds, VT1 (which is very similar to the lactate threshold) and VT2 (which is roughly equivalent to the functional or anaerobic threshold), exercise economy/efficiency (the amount of O2 needed to increase the power output by 1 W) and the classic VO2max.

Blood lactate measurements are OK, but you get values at each stage, say 50W, 100W, 150W and so a measurement can only be attributed to a stage range, rather than a power output. With breath-by-breath gas exchange data you get a value per breath, which working maximally can be 100 or more breaths per minute – the temporal resolution is therefore far far greater.

I did a VO2 test a few years ago as part of some university research program. I’ve got 11 pages of results that I don’t fully understand, things like RR, VE and VE/VO2.
It was on a treadmill that slowly inclined upwards, and was basically run as fast as you can until collapse.

richmars..

R(E)R is the respiratory exchange ratio – it can be used to give a rough estimate of your carbohydrate to fat (and a little protein) energy use (from the O2 consumption and CO2 production from the muscle).

VE is your minute ventilation – the volume of air you are respiring per minute

VE/VO2 is the ventilatory equivalent for oxygen uptake – it is used to identify ventilatory thresholds – like the gas exchange threshold… the numbers for this actually don’t mean anything, the experimenter is visually looking for changes in the VE/VO2 and VE/VCO2.

If you want a description of more of the results drop me an email.

LabMonkey,
Thanks, it was a few years ago so I don’t think I can make much use of the info.