Aerobic Threshold for Exercise Prescription

The Aerobic Threshold (AerT), is an aged cardiovascular parameter not commonly used to evaluate the heart’s performance in athletes. It indirectly evaluated by ventilator parameters during Cardio Pulmonary Test (CPT). Considering that” exercise as prescription therapy “for the diseases, includes training normally established around at the 40% of the peak VO2, this parameter could be taken in care as initial level for the effort prescribed. The aim of the study was to estimate the behavior of the AerT and also Anaerobic Threshold (AT), VO2max in sedentary people. A group of athletes coming from different sports at the same and highest dynamic component were enrolled as control. A group of 41 athletes (16 soccer, 10 basket and 15 cyclists) and 9 healthy subjects were submitted to a CPT. The AerT, AT (assessed by V-slope method) and VO2max were evaluated. The statistical analysis was performed with T student test (P < 0.05 significant). As expected in sedentary all the values were lower than athletes, however for Aer T value appears to be not significantly inferior respect of this one, with the exclusion of the comparison with the cyclists. In sedentary the AerT measure seems to give additional information in evaluating the cardiovascular performance. The VO2max and AT remain the main parameters in defining the athletes performance. Therefore we cannot exclude any further utility of the AerT in normal subject but regularly trained.