Adapting Cardiovascular Endurance Testing Protocols For Different Population Groups: An Essay.

You are required to select one area of fitness and detail how you can adapt different testing protocols depending on the population group. For example, how would you test endurance in an elite athlete, compared to general population and an individual with a health condition?

You should critically discuss a range of techniques to ensure that the correct testing protocol selected, taking into account health conditions, contraindication, and athletes from different sporting backgrounds. Consider the suitability of health and fitness testing and procedures related to the conditions and individual characteristics. 
When considering the individual's health condition, make sure you:

Explain the fundamental concerns of the client's condition.

Critically analyse exercise screening pathways and make research based recommendations for the client. 

Sports Exercise Science and Health

Ideally, the importance of physical activities that enhances as well as maintains physical fitness has no doubt gain traction in recent times especially with the emergence of various lifestyle-related illnesses. Consequently, physical fitness is performed for different reasons, first to strengthen muscles and the overall cardiovascular system, to hone the athletic skills in a person, and weight loss or rather maintenance. In this light, continuous physical exercise tends to boost an individual’s immune system as well as helping prevent the influences of various diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and the risk of type-2-diabetes (Gröpel, Urner, Pruessner, and Quirin, 2018). Moreover, physical exercise helps to improve  mental health and promoting a positive self-esteem. This paper, therefore, proposes to discuss in detail cardiovascular endurance or the aerobic exercise. The paper will achieve this by looking closely at how different protocols are adapted depending on the population groups particularly test the endurance of elite athletes and compare the general population and an individual with a health condition.

Primarily, cardiovascular endurance is considered as the overall ability of a person to be in a position of performing large-muscle dynamic, moderate-to-high intensity exercises in a rather prolonged period of time. In this light, this type of exercise ensures that an individual’s body is exposed to a level at which the heart, lungs, as well as muscles, are working together at the time of exercise for an extended period (Alvarez, Griffin, and Taft, 2017). Consequently, this tends to showcase how efficient the body cardiorespiratory systems works and the overall indicator of the way physical fit and healthy a person is. It is important for a person to understand his or her cardiovascular endurance since it can signify is one is healthy or instead it can show that one may need to improve his or her level of fitness. This allows the lung and the heart to use the oxygen in a better way and thus exercising for longer periods without getting tired.

Cardiovascular endurance can be tested in many ways during a fitness session. In this light, there are various types of standardized that have been developed by professionals with an aim of testing cardiovascular endurance. As a result, there is a need for specialized equipment for the test to be performed in a proper and accurate manner (Kaur, 2017). Nonetheless, there are those tests that can be performed with the use of minimal equipment or rather outside the available resources that often gives an accurate measurement of a person’s cardiovascular endurance. Some the cardiovascular test endurances include Vo2 Max, Mile run or walk, and Pacer.

Importance of Physical Fitness

Vo2 Max

In essence, Vo2 Max or rather the maximal consumption of oxygen is considered as the maximal amount of oxygen that a particular person is in a position to use during exercise. In fact, this is considered as one of the most valid indexes of aerobic aptness. The measurement of this index is often expensive and therefore requires as rather trained and skilled personnel to perform it. This endurance test requires an individual to exercise the exhaustion mostly on a treadmill or even a cycle ergometer. During the overall session of the test, the consumption of oxygen, production of carbon dioxide as well as the overall volume of the air is measured using special equipment (Ng et al., 2018). Notably, this type of cardiovascular test is often useful for those people who at a risk of getting cardiovascular diseases because it helps a person to lose weight. The introduction of such test was based on the all-cause mortality as well as the mortality rates that often stem from various types of cancers. 

Mile Run/Walk

Ideally, this type of test does not require any type of extra equipment. The main goal of this particular test is to make sure that an individual covers one-mile distance as quick as possible. As a result, this type of test is considered as the maximum effort test and is required to be performed by healthy individuals. For one to perform this type of test, one is required to measure the overall time that it is taken to complete a one-mile distant run. Apparently, this should always be recorded or rather noted and, therefore, compared by the use of tables as well as statistics. As a result, this will give a person the overall measure of their cardiovascular endurance results (Cho et al., 2017). The overall expenditures for a moderate walking as well as vigorous running exercises are often considered to produce a similar reduction of risk for a various type of illness such as hypertension, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia despite the fact that there is limited literature supporting this claim.

PACER

PACER is considered as the overall multistage 20-meter shuttle run. In this light, one is required to run one side to the other in a 20-meter distance for as many times as possible. The pace that one is required to run is often set on a rather CD while the interval gets faster as time continues so that one cannot eventually be in a position to maintain the pace and thus cannot keep on running (Hashim, bin Syed Ambon, Hamid, and Razak, 2017). The total repletion that one performs is always recorded to come up with a statistic of an individual cardiovascular endurance test. In this light, one can assess the health risks that are related to weight. One of the benefits of this test is that one can be able to achieve a lower risk of cardiovascular illness. 

Different Cardiovascular Endurance Test Protocols

Testing the overall endurance of elite athletes is no doubt an important part of their training session. There are several key physiological as well as training variables that directly correlates with elite endurance performance, these variables include VO_2max, running economy, and various training characteristics (Jabbal and Baxter-Jones, 2017). While there are various endurances test those athletes take, VO_2max is among the best cardiovascular test to keep an athlete on par with the oxygen uptake. Most of the runners of the elite marathon have virtually a VO2max value that ranges from 70 to about 85 mL/kg/min. in this light, an athlete is considered to work progressively harder particularly on the treadmill or cycle until one is unable to continue (Andrades, Barton, Moxley, and Vigo, 2017). The expired air of an athlete is analysed during the test as the main statement of aerobic capacity is calculated as oxygen consumption. On the other hand, athletes can as well undertake a 12-minute run. In this case, a team is required to run around a particular track for as long as they can in 12 minutes. This process is easy as an athlete only requires a stopwatch as well as people counting the laps.

It is true that physically fit people are as well healthier. In this light, they are in a position of maintaining their most optimum weight and are therefore not prone to cardiac as well as other illnesses. A person is therefore required to perform the physical exercise to be in a position to maintain a relaxed state of mind (Felder, Mitchell, Hogan, Kovacs, and Brewer, 2018). Additionally, people who are physically fit and mentally strong are able to face many ups and downs and thus maintaining a good health state.

In conclusion, the importance of fitness in overall health of an individual can never be underestimated. In this light, conducting fitness test is of essential not only to the athletes but also to the overall population to maintain a healthy state and reduce various risks such as obesity, heart illness, and type 2 diabetes. There are various types of cardiovascular test that one can take. Some of the main endurance tests that are performed in include the Vo2 Max, Mile run or walk, and Pacer. While there is another aptitude test that one can take, rigorous and progressive exercise is in no doubt helpful in achieving a good health state.

References List

Alvarez, A., Griffin, B.R. and Taft, K., 2017. Effects of using the dance aerobic fitness test (DAFT) in training to improve cardiovascular stamina and endurance in collegiate level dancers (Doctoral dissertation). (Vol. 1, No 1).

Andrades, D., Barton, A., Moxley, J., and Vigo, A., 2017. Cardiovascular Endurance Among College Students: How is it Related to Overall Fitness?. In International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings (Vol. 9, No. 5, p. 2).

Cho, K., Jones, E., Lilly, C., Bulger, S., Braga, L. and Elliott, E., 2017. Relationship Between Adherence to Individual Goals Within the 5?2?1?0 Guidelines for Obesity Prevention and Number of PACER Laps in Adolescents. Journal of School Health, 87(10), pp.769-775.

Felder, D., Mitchell, H., Hogan, K., Kovacs, R. and Brewer, W., 2018. Metabolic Responses to a Battling Rope Protocol Performed in the Seated or Stance Positions: 1206 Board# 14 May 31 8. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 50(5S), p.278.graduate Research Journal, 3(1).

Gröpel, P., Urner, M., Pruessner, J.C. and Quirin, M., 2018. Endurance-and Resistance-Trained Men Exhibit Lower Cardiovascular Responses to Psychosocial Stress Than Untrained Men. Frontiers in psychology, 9, p.852.

Hashim, J.B.M., bin Syed Ambon, S.A.E., Hamid, R. and Razak, S.M.A., 2017. Physical fitness norm innovation for practical evaluation of trainee teachers.

Jabbal, A.S. and Baxter-Jones, A., 2017. Does High-Intensity Interval Training Improve Aerobic Power Development More Than Endurance Training?. USURJ: University of Saskatchewan. 

Felder, D., Hogan, K., Kovacs, R., Mitchell, H. and Brewer, W., 2018. Metabolic Responses to a Battling Rope Protocol Performed in the Seated or Stance Positions. In International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings (Vol. 2, No. 10, p. 3).

Kaur, H., 2017. Comparative study on selected cardiovascular endurance among boxing and judo players.

Ng, Y.C., Balasekaran, G., Hui, S.S.C., Govindaswamy, V.V., Lim, J. and Boey, P., 2018. A Comparison of Health Related Fitness Variables between Youths in Singapore and Hong Kong: 2182 Board# 18 June 1 9. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 50(5S), p.529.