Fitness Assessment Service

Feel great and get fitter… Run, Cycle and Row faster!

The benefits the service:

• Improve your speed and endurance
• Get fitter faster by training more efficiently
• Achieve personal best race times
• Maximise fat burning and calorie expenditure
• Feel great and have more energy
• Keep you motivated and enjoying your training

Yes you’re training.…. but are you training smart? Train Smart with London Met!

Whatever type of athlete you are - runner, cyclist, swimmer, rower – are you sure your efforts will result in the maximum body condition you can achieve? You really need to determine precisely if your training hours are paying off. Research with elite sportsmen has shown that metabolic testing of fitness has enabled them to train efficiently and raise their performance. In short, they train smart. Metabolic testing will tell you if the hours you spend training are paying off. It pinpoints how intensely you should be training to make the most progress. It eliminates the guesswork from programme design.

What's the Key to your performance?

Your performance is predominantly related to your body’s ability to use oxygen. You need a high maximal oxygen uptake – we call it VO₂ max But you also need to be able to sustain a high percentage of your VO₂max without accumulating a high amount of lactate in the blood – your lactate threshold. Then you need to convert this aerobic capacity into speed with little wasted energy.

How can we help you at London Met?

We can measure your VO₂max. VO₂max is the maximum amount of oxygen in millilitres you can use in one minute per kilogram of body weight. This information can help you determine the intensity of training you need. Athletes who are fit have higher VO₂max values and can exercise more intensely than those who are not as well conditioned. Numerous studies show that you can increase your VO₂max by working out an intensity that raises your heart rate between 65% and 85% of its maximum for at least twenty minutes three to five times a week. Crucially, once a plateau in VO2max has been reached, further improvements in performance are still seen with training. This is because you are able to perform at a higher percentage of your VO2max for prolonged periods by increasing your body’s ability to tolerate the accumulation of lactic acid in the muscles.

And there's more we can do..

We can help specify how fast and how hard you should train to improve your endurance fitness as quickly as possible. We do this by finding your Lactate Threshold (Tlac). This is the point at which the lactate in the blood that you produce as you exercise begins to accumulate. Training just above or just below your Lactate Threshold is the best way to improve your endurance. By knowing the heart rate at which your blood’s Lactate Threshold occurs you can plan the intensity of your workout with precise training speeds and target times. It’s a test that removes all the guesswork from training. It enables you to train smart by avoiding both over and under training.

But why London Met?

We've been researching this area for some considerable time, and we have practical experience and the equipment to make a positive difference to your athletic career. You’ll receive a one to one service from university physiologists who are at the cutting edge of research and teaching. You’ll be provided with accurate written reports and results you can trust. And you’ll get personalised feedback on what the test results mean together with implications for your training programmes from experienced university personnel. What’s more we’ll prepare you for the tests to ensure that the results, achieved on correctly calibrated equipment, are accurate and consistent.

In short, London Met can help you train smart and monitor your progress.