15th June 2013, What Dave Did Next!

One of the LeisureWorld Gym Rooms Ref: http://bishopstown.leisureworldcork.com/

Aoife Puts Dave Through His Paces...

Editor's Note...

 We aren't sure how Dave felt about rising so early on a Saturday morning. ( Comment below if you think you know) however, true to his commitment he turned up at Leisureworld for a 9:30 appointment.

The Appointment was with Fitness Instructor Aoife Twohig.

LeisureWorld Personal Trainer: Aoife Twohig

First off, Aoife took Dave's Vital Statistics- weight, blood pressure, body fat etc. The she  got Dave to undertake a "sub-maximal fitness test".

For this Dave had to pedal away at a steady rate on a Cycle Ergometer. This looks rather like a regular Gym Bike but when you put your hands on the Bike-handles, a reading of your heartrate pops up! The Ergometer also measured how quickly Dave was cycling, so that in the end, a graph could be plotted comparing work load to heartrate.

The fitter a person is, the greater the work output at a given heartrate....
And the reason its called Sub-maximal Fitness Testing is that the Fitness tester makes sure that the cyclist doesn't let their heart-rate reach the estimated maximum for the cyclists age. This means that the test is safer for peopel of varying fitness levels because the cyclists don't have to push themselves too hard. Also on average it is estimated that at heartrates between 115bpm and 150 bpm the relationshiop between heartrate, oxygen intake and workload is fairly linear- so it is easier to gauge fitness.


For more about the pros and cons see: http://www.acefitness.org/fitnessqanda/fitnessqanda_display.aspx?itemid=255

For more on the different types of Fitness Tests see: http://www.topendsports.com/testing/aerobic.htm
or
http://acefitness.infopop.net/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/452108123/m/7901074661

Here is what Dave might have looked like whilsts doing his test:



Photo from: http://www.rustfitness.com/bikes.html

 Except that the Ergometer bike probably looked more like this:

From: http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~bme301/ergometer/ERGOweb/nordictracksl710.htm

Really like the bottle holder in that model. The manufacturers could easily include a waterbottle with the machine!! :)


From: http://www.exrx.net/Testing/YMCACycleTest.html

The photo above is just included for fun because this editor is a bit of a Heath Robinson fan.