[Diagnosis of performance capacity and guided training for physical endurance]

The evaluation of the aerobic capacity is of great importance for athletes as well as for patients with cardiac and pulmonary diseases. For objective measurements of cardiorespiratory and metabolic responses heart rate, lactate concentration in capillary blood and ventilatory gas exchange are determined during incremental exercise tests either on different ergometers in a laboratory or under training conditions in the field. Besides the maximal O2-uptake (VO2max) several ventilatory and lactate thresholds have been proposed as reliable values for assessing the aerobic capacity and giving training recommendations. For interpretation of the results the training and nutrional behaviour in the previous days have to be considered as especially the lactat thresholds are influenced by the glycogen content of the muscles. Furthermore, training recommendations cannot always be easily transferred from test to training conditions as these can be very different from each other.