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marylin monroe

My Fitness Assessment - On being a lab rat

Last week I got to have a fitness assesment done at the Illinois State University School of Kinesiology and Recreation.  My goal was to get some more precise data on the calories I burn during exercise, my RMR, my VO2max, and my body composition. 

I'd recommend doing this to any serious athlete.  It was extremely informative.  Here are the tests they ran:


  • Blood Pressure, Health Risk Appraisals
  • BODY AGE
  • BC: BodPod, BIA
  • Body Gem RMR
  • FUEL test (Exercise Metabolic rate analysis)
  • CV: VO2max test (run or cycle)
  • MSEF: TriFit

I learned so much about the current state of my fitness doing these tests.  First the good news:

  • My VO2max on the bike is about 65ml/kg/min, which is awesome!
  • On the bike it looks like my FTP is around 240 Watts, which is also higher than expected.
  • My body fat was measured at 8.1%, putting me in the category of "very lean" which is recommended for athletes...so, I'm done loosing weight!!!!!!!!!
And I also learned some information that will help me optimize my training a bit more:

  • My RMR is only 1790 KCals.  According to Harris-Benedict it should be 1855.  So, I burn about 65 calories less than estimated just sitting around.  Bleh, but at least I know.
  • I have serious problems with muscular endurance.  When I topped out on the bike my leg muscles gave out while my heart was only 155 BPM.   I need to build some muscular endurance.  This is exactly the news I received from Ryan, who is helping me on my run. 
So, based on this new information I'm going to modify my training as follows:



Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes

  • I need to work on muscular endurance and anarobic strength, especially in regards to my hamstrings and quads, which are both weaker than they need to be. I think the ways to do that at this point include:
    • More rides in power zone 3
    • Big gear intervals once a week
    • Hill Sprints on the run, lots of hill sprints
    • Kettlebell lunges as sport specific weight training


I'm so grateful Laura and her awesome crew at ISU.  I feel much better equipped to start the season correctly and optimize my training time investment.  If you're an endurance athlete in central Illinois, you should do this!
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