Kirt Smith, age 56, has always kept active and maintained a healthy weight. But a year ago, he decided it was time to step up his workout routine. “I reached a point where I wanted to know exactly how much exercise was enough to maintain my weight and endurance,” says Kirt, a Bellevue Club member. “I was tired of guessing and
wanted information that was specific to my individual needs.” Rather than just lift more weights, Kirt used science to make his training more effective and efficient. How? He turned to metabolic testing.
Long reserved for professional athletes, today metabolic testing is offered to anyone looking to lose or maintain weight and physical health. “The quality of our lives is significantly influenced by how healthy we are and how much energy and stamina we possess,” says Club Personal Trainer Annelise DiGiacomo. “I want to help people unlock their potential by providing them with the knowledge that is necessary to make a remarkable transformation. I’ve seen people struggle to lose weight or maintain physical health. Metabolic testing is an important tool to help them get fit and maintain their fitness.” Using New Leaf Technology, since 2004 the Bellevue Club has offered
Kirt Smith
members two metabolic testing options: the Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) Assessment ($125/retests $89) and the Aerobic Capacity Assessment ($175/retests $119).
Resting Metabolic Rate Assessment
Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) represents the calories your body uses to maintain vital body functions. In simple terms, it is the number of calories a person would burn if awake, but at rest, all day without activity or exercise. The RMR assessment is a simple test lasting up to 15 minutes, which involves breathing into a mouthpiece while your oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide expulsion is measured. The higher your resting metabolic rate, the more calories you burn. The readings allow a Club personal trainer to accurately determine how your body burns fat and carbohydrates and to establish your resting caloric needs. By assessing your daily energy expenditure, a personal trainer can prescribe the most effective fitness and/or weight management program for you. “It is important that people find out what their resting metabolism is because it plays such an important role in how our bodies function,” says Annelise. “Resting metabolism provides the energy that the body needs for pumping blood through the body, inhaling and exhaling air, maintaining body temperature, sending and receiving nerve impulses, and thinking and making important chemicals in the cells.”
Kirt Smith
In September 2004, when Kirt took the RMR test for the first time, it was determined that he burned 1,752 calories doing nothing. When he retested in June 2005, he was burning 1,851 calories. “I noticed a marked difference from the first time I took the RMR test to when I took it the second time,” says Kirt. “Annelise put me on a fitness program that made me much more efficient when I was working out. So, rather than just burning sugar when I worked out, now I am also burning fat.” Club member Page Temple had a similar experience. “I learned what my daily calorie intake should be based on my activities. Before I was tested, I had always guessed, based on my current weight and whatever diet I was following at the time,” says Page. “Equipped with this new information, I started exercising and eating differently. While my activities are the same, the intensity and frequency are different. I also added strength training to boost my muscle mass and my metabolism.”
Aerobic Capacity Assessment
The Aerobic Capacity assessment tests your overall cardiorespiratory fitness. Basically, it measures how
well your heart, lungs, circulatory system and muscles are functioning. Cardiorespiratory fitness is extremely important for reducing risks of heart disease and promoting good health. This test takes about 20 minutes, and involves being hooked up to a heart rate monitor, working out on a stationary bike or treadmill and breathing into a mouthpiece, which analyzes the composition of every breath (oxygen and carbon dioxide) and monitors your heart. Based on this assessment, a person’s unique response to exercise is mapped to create a metabolic profile, which is generally categorized into the following three areas:
YOUR BODY'S MAXIMUM POTENTIAL: PEAK OXYGEN UPTAKE (VO2 MAX)
This value, known as peak oxygen uptake or VO2 max (VO2 stands for volume of oxygen consumed per minute), represents the ability of your heart, lungs and circulation to deliver oxygen to your exercising muscles. It is a gauge of the maximum amount of energy output or work your body can produce at peak performance. You only reach your VO2 max for a brief moment as you near exhaustion. Your VO2 max is determined by factors that include your current level
of fitness, age, sex, body size and heredity.
YOUR BODY’S LEVEL OF FITNESS OR CONDITION: ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD (AT)
The Anaerobic Threshold or AT represents how efficiently your muscles use oxygen to produce energy or work. The AT represents the level of work your body can sustain over an extended period of time and is sometimes referred to as your “operational threshold.” When your body is called upon to perform above your AT, lactic acid builds in the muscles creating fatigue (the burning sensation you feel) and your ability to continue to perform at this level will be very limited (a few seconds to a few minutes depending on how fit you are). You can improve your anaerobic threshold by training at the proper intensity of exercise and conditioning. The closer your AT is to your VO2 max, the better your level of fitness.
Your Maximum Heart Rate
Each person has a maximum heart rate. Charts you see on exercise equipment and walls showing maximum heart rates are actually just averages based on age. The Aerobic Capacity assessment measures your maximum heart rate, which is your anchor point for working out efficiently within five zones. The Club utilizes the following Heart Zones:
ZONE 1: HEALTHY HEART ZONE 50 to 60 percent of your maximum heart rate. This is the easiest, most comfortable zone.
Page Temple credits metabolic testing with improving her overall health and fitness.
Benefits This zone decreases body fat, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, increases muscle mass, decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and helps stabilize weight.
ZONE 2: TEMPERATE ZONE 60 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. This is the cruise zone because you can train for extended periods of time in this zone. Benefits Zone 2 helps individuals gain muscle mass, lose fat mass and strengthen the heart, while utilizing fat.
ZONE 3: AEROBIC ZONE 70 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. This fitness zone provides the transition between the two lower health zones and the two higher performance zones. Benefits This fitness zone improves functional capacity by increasing the number and size of blood vessels, expands vital capacity and the respiratory rate, and increases the size and strength of the heart.
ZONE 4: THRESHOLD ZONE 80 to 90 percent of your maximum heart rate. Maximum fat burning is usually found within this zone. Benefits Zone 4 improves the volume of oxygen consumed per minute (VO2) and increases an individual’s lactate-tolerance ability.
ZONE 5: REDLINE ZONE 90 to 100 percent of your maximum heart rate. This is the 3-H zone, which is a high, hot and hard zone. Benefits Fitness levels are quickly improved. Warning: Do not spend too much time in Zone 5. It may be painful and result in overtraining, which leads to injuries.
“Knowing what my maximum heart rate is, gave me
a starting point from which to begin my workouts,” says Kirt. “Annelise put together an individualized program for me using my maximum heart rate which allowed me to optimize my exercise within each heart zone and maximize my results.” Annelise says once a person has his or her initial RMR or Aerobic Capacity assessments, it is important that the person be retested for a number of reasons. “People attempting to lose weight, have not reached their goal or plateau in their weight loss should be retested,” says Annelise. “Or if they have reached their long-term weight goal, they need to be retested so I can recalculate the total number of calories they should eat each day in order to maintain their weight.” It is recommended that a person has his or her RMR retested annually and the Aerobic Capacity every three
to six months. Along with the RMR and Aerobic Capacity assessments, the Club also offers two metabolic testing packages: the Fitness Improvement Package ($425/a $465 value) and the Get Wellthy Package ($1,250/a $1,450 value). The Fitness Improvement Package includes the RMR assessment, Aerobic Capacity assessment, a body-composition test, a metabolic testing kit, a 60-minute personal training session and one nutrition overview. The Get Wellthy Package includes the RMR assessment and retest, Aerobic Capacity assessment and retest, a blood pressure check, body-composition test, metabolic testing kit, twelve 60-minute personal training sessions and two 50-minute nutrition sessions. “I bought the Get Wellthy Package and it was an incredible deal for the money,” says Page. “I was able
to get an individualized mental picture of where I was
at that particular time and, in turn, Annelise provided
me with the information I needed to improve my overall heath and fitness. It was amazing. I would recommend metabolic testing to anyone. For me, it has changed
my life.”
Pam Knepper comfortably waits to receive the results of her resting metabolic rate (RMR) assessment.
How I Put My Fitness to the Test
By Pam Knepper
Recently, I had the chance to undergo metabolic testing here at the Bellevue Club as research for the story I was writing on the subject for REFLECTIONS magazine. As one of the estimated 200 individuals who have been tested since the Club began offering the service last year, my athletic background fell someplace between the active 30-something wife/mother and the weekend recreational athlete. As a kid, I participated in age-group and high school swimming and then tackled the brutal, but beautiful sport of collegiate crew. After college, I took up running for several years until my knees started to give me problems and my doctor advised that I give up the sport or suffer arthritis pain later in life. So several years ago, I began walking. I liked its varied, near-immediate benefits: weight loss, cardiovascular fitness and invaluable friendships. Nonetheless, after nearly 12 years of walking and
completing many 10K walks, I was curious. Walking is now embedded into my lifestyle, but with the big 40 approaching in the next few years, a closer cardiovascular assessment seemed like a good idea. Club Personal Trainer Annelise DiGiacomo routinely assesses people wanting to lose weight, improve their cardiovascular fitness or recover from injuries.
“We welcome people at all fitness levels,” says Annelise. “Members sometimes call and say they’ve heard about the metabolic testing results of a friend and that they’re interested, but out of shape. They want to know if they should train first.” Her answer is, “No. They shouldn’t. We have different levels of assessments. We adapt metabolic testing to a person’s level of fitness and use it as a baseline for improvement.” The Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and Aerobic Capacity assessments were recommended for me, and I agreed. I had to fast and refrain from drinking coffee before the morning RMR test, which involved lying down in a chair for 15 minutes and breathing into a neoprene mask that covered my nose and mouth and was connected to
a laptop. The machine sampled my airflow during inhalation and exhalation, and then calculated the concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The software assessed the number of calories my body needs to maintain its basic functions. It was determined that I burn 1,916 calories doing nothing, but 7 percent of those calories come from fat, with 93 percent coming from sugar. Annelise quickly pointed out to me that many people like myself burn fat at an alarmingly low rate. She assured me that my fat-burning machine was simply broken and with some workout changes I would soon be burning more
fat than sugar. My Aerobic Capacity assessment, which analyzes the oxygen and carbon dioxide of every breath and monitors your heart, took place a few days later. I spent 20 minutes walking uphill on a treadmill wearing a neoprene mask. Since the mask prevents verbal communication, hand signals were used to assess my status after each interval. After finishing, I was given a series of handouts containing data that revealed my calorie-burning picture.
My peak oxygen uptake or VO2 max (my body’s ability to transport oxygen from the air to the muscles to generate energy) was 24.3 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram per minute. My results placed me in the average category with others my age and gender. By comparison, competitive age-group athletes generally test between 50-60, national-caliber athletes between 60-70 and world-class endurance athletes 70 and above. Lance Armstrong, reigning Tour de France titlist, has a VO2 max of 83.8. I also learned I burn the highest percentage of fat at a heart rate of 121. When I get to my anaerobic threshold (AT) of 153 beats per minute, only a small percentage of the calories I burn consist of fat. With my tests complete, Annelise provided a detailed verbal assessment and offered a performance overview. Her recommendations included interval training and long endurance walking. As a recreational athlete, I’m doing fine. But to immediately improve my
Pam Knepper
fitness and performance, a 2- to 5-pound weight loss is an easily accomplished goal, recommended Annelise. She also said I should work on avoiding simple sugars and to consider consuming five smaller meals daily instead of three regular-size meals. “We are here not to judge you, but to provide information that will make you feel and perform better,” Annelise said. “That is why metabolic testing is so great. You really get an individualized snapshot of how fit you are and what you can do to improve it.”
