Assessment for cardiovascular endurance

Assessment for cardiovascular endurance is important to all. Athletes and non-athletes, runners and mountain climbers as well. Cardiovascular endurance is the ability to exercise without becoming overly tired because your heart, lungs, and blood vessels are healthy, and can supply the required oxygen riched blood to the working muscles in the aerobic conditions.

Testing for cardiovascular endurance includes a variety of methods and equipment, suitable for different people and specific expertise. Such a test can be an endurance test by swimming, walking/running test, cycling, or, step test.

12-Minute Run-Walk Test

The most common cardiovascular test is the 12-Minutes Run-Walk Test, also called cooper test. The goal of this test is to have the participant cover as much distance as possible in 12 minutes. This test can be used to compare pre-training and post-training levels of aerobic fitness. The results and interpretation are age-based.

12-Minute Swimming Test

This test can be used to assess cardiovascular endurance in people who are not able to run or walk comfortably enough to complete the run/walk test. This is also an excellent assessment for asthmatics who seem to experience fewer incidents while performing water exercise.

12-Minute Cycling Test

This test can be used to assess cardiovascular endurance for cyclists or those that prefer cycling to the other previous assessments listed. This test can be done outside (using appropriate distance markers) or inside on a stationary cycle.

Step Test

In this pulse recovery step test, the trainer performs stepping for 3 minutes over a standard step bench (for example right leg up, left leg up, right leg down, left leg down). then, the trainer should sit down and after 5 seconds start measuring the number of pulses per minute.

There are many ways and techniques to improve the cardiovascular endurance. It really depends on the sports preferences and there are vast options. The most common are those related to running or crossfit training. HIIT (high-intensity interval training) is proved to yield a high level of an improvement scheme.

You can read related articles to cover further the understanding of cardiovascular endurance:

VO2 max: An overview, its importance, training routines and calculator

https://mountainoteslcc.com/heart-rate-zones-explanation-and-

calculator/Heart rate zones and calculator

What is lactate and what should we know to improve our aerobic and aerobic capacities for outdoors and workout activities