In an article by Gulati et al in the August issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, exercise capacity norms for women have now been established. A chart was developed that can be used to determine the normal aerobic fitness level for a healthy woman based on her age. Prior to this publication, a woman’s cardiovascular ability was evaluated using research findings that show typical and expected performance for males. A copy of this chart for both women and men will be posted in the aerobics room through September, ‘05. The study demonstrated, for example, that a fifty-five year-old healthy woman should be able to reach a 7.5 MET* intensity on a treadmill to achieve 100% of her age-predicted fitness level. This corresponds to the ability to walk roughly 3.75 mph at an 8% incline on the treadmill. A fifty-five year-old healthy man should be able to reach about 8.5 METs. This may appear very similar but the study found that the differences between the sexes become more significant with increasing age. It was also shown that women who performed at less than 85% of their age-predicted fitness ability had an increased risk for premature mortality. Thus, a 35 year-old woman who achieves only 70% or her age-predicted norm could be in a very unsafe situation when she is older. An appropriately designed and regular exercise program for this individual may have considerable affects on her future health. For more information, please feel free to contact me.
*A MET is a way of measuring exercise intensity. It represents the amount of oxygen consumed for a given workload. One MET represents the amount of oxygen a person consumes at rest. This can be a useful value for many people because it is displayed on all of the treadmills and some of the other cardio equipment that we have at OVAC.
Anna Kotula, DPT
Doctor of Physical Therapy
T 805.798.1408
8-15-2005
