Performance Testing
We take an all-embracing approach to helping you reach your performance goals. Our testing services include top tier lactate threshold, VO2 max and body composition testing.
Vo2Max
VO2 Max is the volume of oxygen the body uses during one minute of maximal exercise. This data tells your potential for endurance athletics.
While aerobic and lactate thresholds are the best predictors of current endurance performance, VO2 Max is one indicator of an athlete’s potential.
Lactate Threshold
Known as the red-line to endurance athletes, this threshold is the highest intensity at which the body can recycle lactic acid as quickly as it is produced. Just below lactate threshold (LT), an athlete is working hard and acid levels are moderately high, but it does not accumulate. Speeding up just a little will cause lactic acid accumulation. Knowing this precise threshold enables an athlete to work out most efficiently.
Lactic acid is a byproduct of exercise which makes the muscles burn and may contribute to fatigue. Athletes during exercise, even at low intensity, are always producing lactic acid. Their muscles are also constantly burning lactic acid and using it as a fuel. At low intensity the muscles easily recycle as much acid as is produced. The higher the intensity is, the more acid is produced by the muscles. At lactate threshold intensity, the muscle is able to recycle the acid as quickly as it is produced. If the athlete speeds up just slightly, the muscles produce more acid than it can recycle and acid accumulates, causing fatigue and damaging the muscles.
DEXA Body Composition Scan
The gold standard in Body Composition and Bone Density. The Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA) scan is a means to measure bone mineral density, total body fat and total muscle mass.
Two x-ray beams at differing energy levels pass through the tissues of the body. Fat, muscle and bone each have different attenuating factors, i.e. different levels of absorption due to their unique densities. It is these attenuating factors that allow the DEXA to calculate relative masses of each tissue type in each region (trunk, arms, legs).
