How many horsepower do you have?

Stress tests serve above all to ensure that the athlete who performs them is in good physical condition and does not present any contraindications to intense exercise. In addition, they also serve as a prediction of the performance that he can show in any competition.

In other words, a stress test is to the body what a dyno is to a car. That is, we can know if we have 50, 100 or 200 horsepower and later we will know what acceleration and what speed the vehicle will have.

The power of our body is called maximal oxygen consumption (or its abbreviation VO2 max) . This value is nothing other than the ability of our body to capture oxygen from the environment and use it in cellular reactions to transform it into mechanical energy (or movement). The greater this capacity, the greater the performance capacity of the individual.

The value of oxygen consumption varies between 20 ml/min/kg up to 90 in elite and professional athletes. The athletes with a higher value with respect to their body weight are cross-country and cross-country skiers. The athletes with a higher absolute value are rowers. It is important to understand the difference between the relative and absolute concept and going back to the motorized simile it is easy to understand. A cross-country or backcountry skier would be like a motorcycle. Not very powerful but very light and therefore with a very high power/weight ratio. A rower would be like an ocean liner, very powerful but with a lot of weight. If it fights against gravity it has nothing to do but without gravity it is capable of developing spectacular power levels.

Oxygen consumption is a performance value that is highly determined by genetics. With training you can improve between 10 and 15%. For this reason, when one goes to take a stress test to find out this value, they can leave quite disappointed based on their expectations. Values less than 70 ml/min/kg. in men and 65 ml/min/kg. in women they do not qualify to be an elite athlete in performance activities. I’m sorry. This is so and there is no other option than to dedicate yourself to training with enthusiasm, enjoying the races to probably never reach the finish line first unless we have a stroke of luck and those in front manage the race poorly.

However, don’t let it get you down! The longer the races, the less influence this value has and the greater influence aspects of efficiency and competition management have. If one trains to achieve his maximum potential and plays his cards correctly, he can still enjoy the races and reach the finish line with even greater satisfaction than someone who has been touched by the gods and has plenty of horsepower.