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Much has been said and the issue of the importance of oxygen consumption in relation to sports practice. And in truth that is a capital question in relation to sports performance, but partly overrated.
To keep cells alive, in activity, they require the presence of oxygen to carry out most of the processes that take place in it. Therefore, the higher the cellular activity, the higher the oxygen requirements.
From here 2 situations arise:
- How much oxygen does each subject need to perform a specific job?
- What is the maximum amount of oxygen that an organism is capable of taking advantage of?
From the first question asked, amount of oxygen required to carry out a specific job, the concept of the labor economy. It will be better to use less than more oxygen for an activity, in the case of sport, eg to go a given speed, whether running, cycling, rowing, swimming, etc.
Its improvement will depend on different factors, all of them interrelated:
- Technique
- Muscular tone
- Adequate use of the most "economical" energy systems (aerobic fat-carbohydrates).
Regarding the second, the maximum amount of oxygen that the body is able to take advantage of, will be determined by the so-called "Maximum oxygen consumption”(VO2 max), which is the maximum amount of oxygen that our body is capable of taking advantage of for its cellular processes. At some point, even if we increase the number of times we breathe, or the number of liters of aire per minute that we introduce into our lungs, this oxygen consumption no longer increases.
It is a value that is largely genetically determined, but can be developed through training by 15-20%, not more.
Oxygen consumption will depend fundamentally on different systems:
- Pulmonary
- Cardiac
- Bloody
- Muscular
All of them with their qualities and limitations, development capacity and training method, and it will be the training and development of each of these factors that will determine the improvement of that oxygen consumption and therefore of the maximum capacity of the organism.
How can I measure my oxygen consumption?
The only precise way to measure it is by direct methods, that is, in relation to the intensity of effort made, measure the difference between the oxygen that is inspired and that which is exhaled (expelled). This difference will be the oxygen that remains in our body to meet the cellular metabolic needs. This technique is called ergospirometry.
This requires having specific equipment (gas analyzer) that is not exactly economical, apart from the fact that it allows to measure a single subject at a time, in a sufficiently standard environment.
Field alternative?
For the valuation of the economy of work, none exact. In any case, estimated, by determinations of lactic acid in blood.
For the assessment of maximum oxygen consumption, there are different formulas in the literature, which, when applied, maintaining the assessment protocol for which they were designed, allow an acceptable estimate of this maximum oxygen consumption, based on the developed speed and / or distance traveled, according to the measurement protocol that is applied.
Y, Is that maximum oxygen consumption that important?
Well yes, and no.
Yes, because it allows the potential of a person to be valued, even without the person having yet developed all their qualities.
No, because for most sports disciplines (all those lasting more than 10 minutes), the maximum oxygen consumption is only a reference value, the absolute maximum, the important thing will be what advantage is taken of it, that is, where the aerobic and anaerobic thresholds are recorded, which are what give us the true measure of what our "cruising speed" is for different distances.
To apply a football simile, the maximum oxygen consumption (aerobic power) would be the size of the ball, and the thresholds, how inflated it is. And this last quality (aerobic capacity) will ultimately be the really determining one in aerobic disciplines.
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