V02 Max Testing with Health Matters
After having her metabolic testing completed with Health Matters (located in Westpark Fitness) back in April; here our assistant manager Alison discusses her follow-up visit to learn more about how her body works best and how her exercises, nutrition and routines can be tailored to her goals. She met again with Seán and this time completed V02 testing to get a broader understanding of her physiological make up and what she needed to do to continue to reach and maintain her fitness goals.
V02 Max Testing at Westpark Fitness
Alison started by reviewing her metabolic testing from April and reflecting to where she had come. As you can hear in her own words, she could identify some gaps in her training (specifically her preferred type of training) that needed to change: “I had the metabolic test done in April with the goal of losing some weight and finding out what my daily calorie intake should be. Since then I have lost some weight but my metabolism has gone down by 10% which is not good. This also means I have to consume 200 calories less per day if I want to lose weight. Working in the gym environment, I know that a big factor in boosting metabolism is having a certain amount of muscle mass. As I don’t do any strength training, I know this is where I need to focus to increase my metabolism. The more muscle we have the more calories we burn and my training consists of cardio only – two spin classes per week and three 10km walks on a good week . . .”
At Health Matters, Seán explained to her that knowing her V02 max can help to see how hard she could push her body and if she had been doing this correctly for the results she wanted. As a V02 max test assesses how much oxygen-rich blood your heart can pump around your body, it can reveal how efficient your muscles are at using this oxygen and if they need to be conditioned to improve performance and (ultimately) get the desired results from exercising: “My VO2 max test put me in the excellent range for VO2 max but I am conditioned for doing hard intervals (like in my spin classes) but my recovery is not great. I can’t go from a hard heart rate zone back to a recovery zone very quickly, so this needs to improve. I wanted to get this test done to see what heart rate zones I am purely burning fat and when I have gone into burning glycogen – I can monitor this easily through my Myzone tracker. This was really interesting as it shows that if I want to burn fat I don’t have to be pushing myself so hard in my cardio workouts. This in turn will help with recovery.”
Armed with even more knowledge of not just how the human body works, but specifically how her own body responds to different levels and intensity of exercise, Alison was empowered in knowing what to do next. With these results, you can put into a place a plan that is backed by science and tailored just for you to both reach and maintain your health and fitness goals: “I have since booked in with Eddie from the fitness team and he has given me a two day weight training programme concentrating on hypertrophy with compound exercises. Time is a factor for me with two young children, so I will do two forty-minute weight sessions per week along with two spin classes and two 10km walks in my lower heart rate zone. Seán from Health Matters explains all of this so well and it really makes you think about why you are training. You need to change your training to get a different result. It was the perfect motivation and encouragement that I needed to get me strength training.”
Health Matters is based here in Westpark Fitness and you can book in with them to get your own metabolic testing, V02 max testing and more! You don’t have to be a Westpark Fitness member to book in with Health Matters. Learn more about them on their website here and contact Seán on 086 100 6088 or e-mail sean@myhealthmatters.ie
