Average physical potential
mpru...@hotmail.com
someone and trained them for rowing for a year, what sort of 2k score
would an average person be able to achieve. To narrow it down a bit
lets say an average 20 - 30 year old male (for example). I was
wondering this partly to do with what kind of performance you could
expect from novices after a season, partly because I've heard quite a
few people who look at someone and say "he should be able to pull x:xx"
which seems to just be based on height and weight, and partly because
it was just a random question that popped into my head on the way to
the pub.
Also, when I say average I'm talking about average healthy man on the
street taken from the general population (although I'm not sure what
percentage of them could be described as healthy) rather than an
average person in the population of current rowers if that makes any
sense.
Kieran
Hmmm... well in health-related professions, for research/statistics
purposes, an "average" *healthy* male is defined as (IIRC) 70kg, 5 feet
10 inches tall, and a VO2max of around 45~55 L/min/kg, and a body fat of
about 15% to 20%. I haven't done enough research to equate that size
and VO2max to an average erg score, but I wouldn't be surprised if
someone has done enough VO2max testing among rowers to make a guess at
it (although I don't know of anyone on this board with that experience).
But just to make a wild guess, I would say that after a year (i.e. 2
scholastic semesters) of training, this individual (again on average)
would be pulling in the high 6-minutes... e.g. 6:50 or so.
As a comparison, I think Lance Armstrong is 5'10", weighs about 75kg,
has a body fat of around 6 or 7% (depending on time of year I suppose)
and a vo2max of around a billion. (actually, I think I read that his is
surprisingly low for his performance abilities (compared to say,
Indurain) and is in the mid- to high-70's (e.g. 77 L/min/kg or so.))
-Kieran
Marc Gwadz
> mpru...@hotmail.com wrote:
>,,stuff deleted..
>
> As a comparison, I think Lance Armstrong is 5'10", weighs about 75kg,
> has a body fat of around 6 or 7% (depending on time of year I suppose)
> and a vo2max of around a billion. (actually, I think I read that his is
> surprisingly low for his performance abilities (compared to say,
> Indurain) and is in the mid- to high-70's (e.g. 77 L/min/kg or so.))
>
> -Kieran
chris carmichael says LA's VO2 is about 84
Mike Sullivan
"Kieran" <kc_...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:VJB3d.9718$%42.4896@trndny08...
> mpru...@hotmail.com wrote:
snip
> someone has done enough VO2max testing among rowers to make a guess at
> it (although I don't know of anyone on this board with that experience).
This is driving me nuts. Unfortunately, I can't find literature at hand
to back me up, so maybe I'm wrong.
VO2 max seems to be used to describe VO2 efficiency. VO2 max is
supposed to be the raw volume of O2 burned for one minute at AT.
The efficiency rating comes as you divide that score by kg.
Did this change, or did the Senility Bus pick me up when I wasn't looking?
Kieran
I dunno which (senility or standards change) is the case, Mike, but when
I learned how to do VO2max testing last semester, it didn't correspond
with either of what you said. VO2 is the volume of O2 consumed per
minute by a person at any given time (you can have a V02 sleeping, or
walking, or whatever, it's just a measure of how much O2 you are
consuming per minute at that moment). VO2max is the *maximum* volume of
oxygen that a given person can POSSIBLY consume per minute, which
usually means that they are WAY above AT. AT usually comes at about 80%
or so of VO2max. V02max ONLY comes when you are literally AT YOUR LIMIT
and can absolutely produce no more power. It is possible to sustain
work output at V02max, but not for very long.
The scores are normalized to body mass (thus the /kg) because a sleeping
elephant consumes more oxygen per minute than Indurain and Armstrong
would combined, while racing each other up Alpe d'Huez. This does not
really make it an efficiency rating, though. But without dividing by
body mass, I would probably score higher on V02 than Armstrong, simply
because I'm a lot bigger than he is, so I have more tissue that consumes
oxygen.
Make sense?
-Kieran
PaulS
Based on the 2004 C2 World Rankings the 20-29 2k percentiles would
look like this:
HM 20-29
90th = 6:15.4
75th = 6:28.5
50th = 6:47.0
LM 20-29
90th = 6:29.9
75th = 6:42.1
50th = 6:59.4
My target for my "competitive" club rowers is to get them to the 90th
percentile, and I would consider them a pretty average group. I see
most of them get above the 75th percentile, but only a few seem to
make it into the 90th or better. (They still wonder why they are not
as competitive as they think they should be) [;o)
To balance the "Ergs don't float" you could also say "Boats without an
engine don't move."
- Paul Smith
Mike Sullivan
> Mike Sullivan wrote:
> > "Kieran" <kc_...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> > news:VJB3d.9718$%42.4896@trndny08...
> >
>
> I dunno which (senility or standards change) is the case, Mike, but when
> I learned how to do VO2max testing last semester, it didn't correspond
> with either of what you said. VO2 is the volume of O2 consumed per
> minute by a person at any given time (you can have a V02 sleeping, or
> walking, or whatever, it's just a measure of how much O2 you are
> consuming per minute at that moment). VO2max is the *maximum* volume of
> oxygen that a given person can POSSIBLY consume per minute, which
> usually means that they are WAY above AT. AT usually comes at about 80%
> or so of VO2max. V02max ONLY comes when you are literally AT YOUR LIMIT
> and can absolutely produce no more power. It is possible to sustain
> work output at V02max, but not for very long.
Right, if VO2 is the volume of O2 consumed per minute (at whatever
activity) MAX VO2 is the maximum your body can consume in a minute,
that minute being at the AT before your body shifts from Aerobic to more
Anaerobic energy production.
>
> The scores are normalized to body mass (thus the /kg) because a sleeping
> elephant consumes more oxygen per minute than Indurain and Armstrong
> would combined, while racing each other up Alpe d'Huez. This does not
> really make it an efficiency rating, though. But without dividing by
> body mass, I would probably score higher on V02 than Armstrong, simply
> because I'm a lot bigger than he is, so I have more tissue that consumes
> oxygen.
>
> Make sense?
For me it's simply a semantical problem. I'll go back to the notes I took
and
the scores I got for the team members.
You will have a bigger VO2 max than Armstrong given my definition, and
that won't be a meaningful measurement of your fitness, but I think would be
a good predictor(but certainly not the only predictor) of physiological
capability of rowing success. In lots of testing, Of course the larger
people would get higher VO2 max, but not necessarily all large people have
large VO2 maxes, at least from my observation.
VO2 efficiency isn't as high among elite rowers as cyclers as they need the
extra mass and leverage of size to overcome hull drag.
Mike
Clarkey
I have heard that Lance is subpar compared to Indurain in terms of
physiology (and personality for that matter) which is why Lance plays
the I'm 5 times mentally tougher than anyone in the world card on that
issue. I heard a stat that indurain's resting HR was 27. Holy crap, I
thought I was a stud with a 37. Anyway, the Lance/Indurain thing
brings up that I think mental toughness has a lot to do with it. Which
is why I think in this poll I will say give a range of the average
male with 1 yr exp will pull around a 6:40-7:00min range
mpruscoe
> To balance the "Ergs don't float" you could also say "Boats without an
> engine don't move."
>
> - Paul Smith
I only put the "ergs don't float" bit in to steer the discussion away
from anything detailed about exact correlation of ergs to performance
on the water - I certainly wasn't going to argue against the need for a
good engine, just wondering what an average engine would be.
Kieran
> Right, if VO2 is the volume of O2 consumed per minute (at whatever
> activity) MAX VO2 is the maximum your body can consume in a minute,
> that minute being at the AT before your body shifts from Aerobic to more
> Anaerobic energy production.
Actually, no. AT is not a black and white line, and VO2max does not
occur at AT. The there are three major metabolic pathways for skeletal
muscle. The first has to do with what's called the Creatine-Phosphate
shuttle. It is anaerobic, and only really lasts for the first minute or
two of intense exercise. The second, glycolosis, is also anaerobic.
The third, generally called aerobic, is obviously not anaerobic. All
three pathways are *always* working in skeletal muscle, even when you're
"in the aerobic zone" or have "gone anaerobic" ~ all three forms of
metabolism are still taking place, just in differing ratios. A.T. is
just a benchmark past which most people are doing *more* anaerobic
(glycolosis) metabolism than aerobic. VO2max occurs way, way, WAY past
the AT point for a normal athletic individual. AT is generally around
70% to 80% max Heart Rate, and VO2max normally occurs much closer to max
HR... maybe 95% or more of max HR. The VO2 that occurs at AT would
probably be called something like VO2-AT
Another issue is that the term AT is somewhat a misnomer. What people
are usually referring to is the Lactate-Threshold, a point during
extended exercise where the Blood-Lactate concentration jumps up
significantly. This is generally considered a transition to mostly
anaerobic metabolism, but this point is often debated among
physiologists. In fact, I'm supposed to read a paper tonight which
discusses how Lactate in some instances is actually a good thing...
we'll see....
> For me it's simply a semantical problem.
> I'll go back to the notes I took and
> the scores I got for the team members.
>
> You will have a bigger VO2 max than Armstrong given my definition, and
> that won't be a meaningful measurement of your fitness, but I think would be
> a good predictor(but certainly not the only predictor) of physiological
> capability of rowing success.
Well, only in the sense that you could assume that other rowers are
going to be similarly sized, and therefore our un-normalized VO2max
numbers would be somewhat comparable. It is still better, more
accurate, to normalize to body weight. Take myself at 6'7" ~205 lbs,
versus another rower at say, 6'4" 190... nearly the same build (same BMI
~23). If we score the same VO2max in L/min (say around 6500), then the
smaller guy actually has a better utilization of O2 for his size, and in
theory will have better endurance than I, assuming similar mental
toughness etc. But he would show a higher VO2max normalized to body
weight ~ 75.2 L/min/kg vs. 69.7 L/min/kg for me. No one would argue
that a VO2max of 75.2 is significantly better than 69.7. This way the
tester would know right away that the smaller guy probably has better
metabolic capacity than I. I say "probably" because as you said, of
course there are many other factors than just VO2max.
Now you may say that while the smaller guy has a better vo2max, I am
taller and therefore have a possible rowing advantage. I would argue
that while I may be taller, I lack the metabolic capacity to back it up.
> In lots of testing, Of course the larger
> people would get higher VO2 max, but not necessarily all large people have
> large VO2 maxes, at least from my observation.
No, and all small people do not all have low V02max, therefore we need a
way to compare people's metabolic capacity, even though they are
different sizes. The accepted way to do this is to divide VO2max by
body mass. It's not just semantics, it's normalization, and it's done
all the time in all facets of science, not just health sciences, but it
is especially important here.
> VO2 efficiency isn't as high among elite rowers as cyclers as they need the
> extra mass and leverage of size to overcome hull drag.
Hmmm... I might disagree with that statement. If by "efficiency" you
mean the L/min/kg version, then the extra body mass shouldn't change the
score *much* and a cyclist's score should be similar to a similarly
talented and trained rower. When comparing elite endurance runners and
cyclists, there isn't a statistically significant difference.
If anything I would say rowers would tend to have lower VO2max
(normalized) simply because it's a less popular sport than running or
cycling, so statistically, you're going to see more genetically gifted
individuals in the more popular sports.
By the way, normalizing by body mass makes the VO2 value no more or less
an efficiency than not normalizing it, so I wouldn't call the L/min/kg
version an efficiency. Either way, regardless of which you prefer, the
standard for VO2max today is L/min/kg. If you have old numbers w/o the
/kg and want to compare them to modern athletes, find out what the
weight of that rower was back during the test and divide.
-Kieran
Alister Taylor
whether absolute VO2 is the predictor. VO2/kg tends to favour
lightweights, so may be a better indicator for on-water performance,
but massive erg scores tend to be by massive people.
On this issue, does anyone have info on what some elite VO2 scores
are. I've just got Tim Foster's book, where he talks about Pinsent's
as 8.5 litres, but according to him Redgrave and Cracknell are around
6.5. Given that Redgrave raced at about 105kgs, this would give him a
not exactly earth shattering 62mg/kg. Intriguing.
Alister
chris harrison
> mpru...@hotmail.com wrote in message news:<1095687863....@h37g2000oda.googlegroups.com>...
>>street taken from the general population (although I'm not sure what
>>percentage of them could be described as healthy) rather than an
>>average person in the population of current rowers if that makes any
>>sense.
>
>
> Based on the 2004 C2 World Rankings the 20-29 2k percentiles would
> look like this:
> HM 20-29
> 90th = 6:15.4
> 75th = 6:28.5
> 50th = 6:47.0
>
> LM 20-29
> 90th = 6:29.9
> 75th = 6:42.1
> 50th = 6:59.4
>
> My target for my "competitive" club rowers is to get them to the 90th
> percentile, and I would consider them a pretty average group. I see
> most of them get above the 75th percentile, but only a few seem to
> make it into the 90th or better. (They still wonder why they are not
> as competitive as they think they should be) [;o)
6:15 is a fast 2k, even amongst competitive club rowers - and is
definitely an unlikely goal for a brand new average-guy-off-the-street
after a year, I would say. Given that elsewhere in this thread the
definition for the 'average' man is around about the rowing definition
for lightweight, getting them under 7 minutes would be a decent first
benchmark then add in the normal fudge factors for weight and whatnot.
I would doubt you've got many competitive club oarsmen of any size, even
the little blokes relying on the ergs not floating mantra, who have PBs
over 7 minutes.
Nick Ablitt
> weight ~ 75.2 L/min/kg vs. 69.7 L/min/kg for me.
Am I being stupid here, or what are the units?
Does this mean a 100kg guy with a VO2max normalised to body weight of 75
L/min/kg could consume 7,500 litres of Oxygen in a minute???
That's an awful lot of Oxygen.
Should there be a decimal point somewhere or is it mL/min/kg?
Kieran
Yeah, good catch. WOOPS! The units we *should* be talking about are
mL/min/kg... so your example would be ~7.5L O2.
-Kieran
Kieran
That is interesting. Makes me feel better about *my* VO2 score...
erm... or WORSE about my rowing performance!
Either way, while normalizing to weight isn't perfect, I still think
it's better than raw L/min scores for comparing one athlete to another,
especially if you're comparing within a sport. While big folks do have
their weight working against them in the mL/min/kg formula, they usually
have much larger lungs, which don't add to the weight much (I've got a
vital capacity of 10L, average is about 6L for men). That tends to help
equalize the weight discrepancies.
BTW, my instructor told our class that the highest VO2 ever recorded was
a Scandinavian (can't recall the exact country) x-country skier who was
a very large man... he scored close to 100 mL/min/kg, IIRC.
-Kieran
Ewoud Dronkert
> BTW, my instructor told our class that the highest VO2 ever recorded was
> a Scandinavian (can't recall the exact country) x-country skier
Bjørn Daehlie, no doubt.
PaulS
Yes, Absolute values for for VO2max are more indicative of max power
production capabilities (Some research on this is available at Stephen
Selier's physiology of Rowing page), the /Kg adjustment was thought up
by lwts to inflate the value to something that they could claim to be
"beating the heavyweights" with; Why do they always want such
consideration?
As for Pinsents 8.5l capacity, I think that was lung volume (they
mentioned something about his chest cavity housing a lot of room.),
but don't have the book in hand to confirm that at this moment.
Absolute VO2Max in excess of 7.0Liter/min are generally considered
exeptional, at least they were in the 80's, maybe now it's different.
Surely "The Dr." will speak out if he deems me incorrect. [;o)
- Paul Smith
PaulS
What is your source of doubt? I coach Masters, so don't generally
deal with the "20 somethings", most of them would be 40+ so it gets a
lot easier to be in the 90th Percentile, I was there after being out
of training for 16 years in 5 months, so as far as an "Average person"
(I was far below average fitness when beginning) taking a year to get
to the 90th percentile, it shouldn't be too optimistic, though I do
like to remain optimistic regardless. [;o)
The group managed some medals at local, regional, and national
competitions this season so were at least "competitive" some of the
time.
- Paul Smith
j brontey
A lot of the elite cylists at that time had HR's in the low 30's and
very high hematocrits. Something like 20 died from it. Too much EPO.
Ben
donal casey
Association always used to hold a book of VO2 and Anaebolic threshold
scores for all sorts of sports and it was an interesting book of
signatures that would be worth a bit to someone!! My own perspective
on the results at the time was that VO2 is the thing that hours and
hours of training develops an individual into having a better engine
whereas the anaebolic threshold is how hard someone is prepared to
drive themselves at any particular level of fitness capacity.
The test at the time was pull 2.10 for x mins then progressively drop
the erg score..until at 1.40 you were dropping a unit every 30 seconds
until you exploded. So whilst rowing at IC when in my distant memory I
was pretty fit my VO2 max was still limited compared with some people
but I was able to drive the score down lower due to the anabolic
threshold. In other words the latter is scientific jargon for nutter
factor or how much someone is prepared to bash there head against a
brick wall. Of course the fitter you are and the harder you have
trained this factor will also increase. The guys who are really quick
score well on both of course!
Now the main factor is the beer gut factor.
Donal
a...@irow.com (Alister Taylor) wrote in message news:<78ae4359.04092...@posting.google.com>...
Neil Wallace
> Anaebolic threshold
what is that?
Ewoud Dronkert
It's a short while before anyone says: "Was that a man or a woman?"
O. Korol
<snip>
> VO2 efficiency isn't as high among elite rowers as cyclers as they need the extra mass and leverage of size to overcome hull drag.
>
> Mike
VO2 max of rowers is lower than VO2 max of cyclists for several
reasons:
1) As Kieran said, rowers are selected from a smaller pool than
cyclists, so you are less likely to find people with exceptional VO2
max potential.
2) Heavyweight rowers are bigger than cyclists, so the scaling law
works against them. I'd imagine that VO2 max, like aerobic power, is
proportional to body weight ^2/3. (If this is true, normalized VO2
max of best lightweights should come closer to cyclists'.)
3) Rowing motion is not conducive to good lung ventilation. Rowers
are unique among other althletes in that they tend to record higher
VO2 max on a treadmill or a stationary bike rather than an erg. (All
other athletes record higher VO2 max on the equipment they specialize
in.)
4) Rowers do not abuse EPO.
Finally, normalized VO2 max is not a meanigfull indicator of
performace potential. Instead, look to the power output at VO2 max
and duration for which VO2 max can be sustained.
One more thing. VO2 max appears to be correlated with success in
large boats, but not in small boats (that is, if the last issue of
Rowing News is to be believed). So if you VO2 max leaves your coach
shaking his head, you can always move to a pair or a single :)
Ewoud Dronkert
> 4) Rowers do not abuse EPO.
Sucker.