Improved estimation of total oxygen uptake in exercise by evaluation of aerobic fitness

The purpose of the present study was to contrive a new practical method for estimating total O2 uptake during exercise from total heart beats after individual evaluation of aerobic fitness levels. Twenty healthy male subjects participated in cycle ergometer tests, maximal O2 uptake (VO2max) tests and various simple tests including simple endurance tests. From the cycle ergometer results, the following formula for estimating total O2 uptake in exercise was determined: TVO2 (ml X kg-1) = SR125 X (45.8 X mean HR + 4268) X THB X 10(-4) where TVO2, THB, and mean HR are total O2 uptake, total heart beats, and mean heart rate (beats X min-1) in exercise, respectively, and SR125 is the slope of the regression line between accumulated heart beats and accumulated O2 uptake during exercise at 125 beats X min-1 of mean HR. SR125 had a significant correlation not only with VO2max but also with each score (X) in any simple endurance tests such as, for example, a step test for 2 min. In this case, accordingly, SR125 can be found as; SR125 = -0.00118X + 0.3478. These formulae indicate that the total O2 uptake of any exercising subject can be estimated from his total heart beats regardless of intensities of exercise when his aerobic fitness level is evaluated by the simple endurance test. The total O2 uptake estimated by our method was compared to that measured by the Douglas bag method, and the discrepancy between the two results was less than the errors of values estimated by traditional methods.