Cardiorespiratory fitness evaluation in climacteric women: comparison of two methods

Middle-aged women are becoming increasingly interested in aerobic exercise. For exercise to be meaningful, training needs to be performed at 70% to 85% of VO2max for 20 minutes, three times weekly. The graded exercise test is the standard method used to determine maximum oxygen uptake, but this test is impractical for use in clinical practice. A cross-sectional study evaluated 163 women between 35 and 75 years of age by graded exercise test and compared the result with a matched group of 121 women tested by bicycle ergometer (predicted maximum oxygen uptake). Bicycle testing and the graded exercise test had a similar range of values; this was confirmed by 29 climacteric women performing both tests (r = 0.789). Menopausal status has no effect on cardiorespiratory fitness: the predicted maximum oxygen uptake of age-matched menstruating women was 27.4 +/- 6.3 ml/kg/min and that of nonmenstruating women was 25.3 +/- 4.2 ml/kg/min (p greater than 0.05). Bicycle ergometry can thus be used as a screen to determine the cardiorespiratory fitness status of climacteric women.