V̇O2 max test in Wickford, RI
Performance and wellness lab
Reach Peak Performance
Assess your cardiovascular health and fitness measures with a V̇O2 max test. Optimize wellness, improve performance, and more efficiently achieve your fitness goals. Testing can be done on a treadmill or bicycle ergometer.
Test Your Fitness with V̇O2
Max Testing
If you are focused on maximizing athletic performance and understanding your cardiovascular health better, a V̇O2 max fitness test delivers a thorough assessment of cardiopulmonary function. A V̇O2 max test measures your aerobic power, pinpoints thresholds for training, and breaks down heart rate zones, empowering you to optimize your workouts and reach your goals.
Gain critical understanding of your cardiopulmonary health with V̇ital Fitness Testing V̇O2 max test. This is more than a test—it’s your roadmap to optimal fitness and well-being.
Our team will thoroughly review your results with you and answer any questions so that you leave with a clear understanding of your fitness metrics. You will also receive a customized, easy to understand report along with basic training recommendations. The option for more advanced coaching along with discounted serial testing will also be available.
Kickstart Your Fitness Journey
Customized Fitness Metrics
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Assess your maximal aerobic power.
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Critical health insight: learn important health metrics that impact and predict your longevity and well-being.
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Optimize training: based on your results, pinpoint areas to improve your aerobic capacity to reach your goals.
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Cellular performance: fine-tune mitochondrial function for peak cellular efficiency.
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Proven precision: rely on the gold standard trusted by elite athletes.
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Zone specific training: learn your thresholds and heart rate zones to precisely guide workouts.
V̇O2 max testing for everyone
V̇O2 max testing (also known as CPET) has been the secret weapon of elite athletes, the standard for assessing cardiovascular fitness and providing customized training.
Now V̇ital Fitness Testing makes this advanced modality available to everyone, with testing and reporting supervised by a physician with thirty years of expertise in the field.
How V̇ital Fitness
V̇O2 max test works
Generally, about 20 minutes from start to finish with an additional 10-15 minutes for review of results. After getting “hooked up” and situated on the treadmill or bicycle ergometer, you will briefly warm up (2-3 minutes) at a low intensity of exercise. The workload will then gradually ramp up over 10-15 minutes until you are at maximal exercise and YOU ask to stop. You will then warm down for 3-5 minutes. After cooling down, your results will be reviewed with you and compared to age- and gender-matched norms. A detailed report will be sent to you by e-mail within 24 hours.
VO₂ max testing is valuable for everyone — from competitive runners and athletes to individuals focused on improving wellness and general fitness. Whether you are training for a race, looking to break through a fitness plateau, or simply want to understand your cardiovascular health better, testing will provide valuable insights.
No. You will not be receiving any medical advice. Although metabolic stress testing (VO2 max testing) is a valuable tool for managing individuals with various health problems, in such individuals it should only be done in a hospital setting. It is possible that metabolic stress testing for the purpose of improving wellness and/or fitness level may be covered by your work’s health savings account (HSA).
Our body must deliver more fuel (glucose and fatty acids) and oxygen to support increased work by our muscles. Think of a fire producing energy within muscle cells. A fire needs something to burn and oxygen. The other thing our body must do is get rid of waste products, CO2 and lactic acid, the byproducts of intracellular energy metabolism.
At a certain exercise intensity, the amount of oxygen consumed cannot be increased any further. The lungs are burning. The heart’s output is max’d out. Muscle cells cannot extract any more. Lactic acid builds up in the body. Exercise at VO2 max intensity can be sustained for only very short durations.
VO2 max requires finely tuned synchronization between the brain, the lungs, the heart, the circulation, the liver, and muscle cells. It reflects the health and interaction of all of these organs; the cumulative effect of genetics and lifestyle changes made over decades.
The following can be measured: maximal tolerated workload, maximal heart rate, maximal fat and glucose oxidation (usage), maximal aerobic power (VO2 max), when the body starts burning fuel anaerobically (the anaerobic or lactate threshold), maximal ventilation, and the precise breakdown of heart rate zones. As an add-on, pulmonary function can also be assessed.
Typically, heart rate is broken into 5 zones and used by runners as a tool to gauge work-out intensity. The zones are most simply derived as percentage of peak predicted heart rate. A more exact breakdown of heart rate zones is derived from metabolic parameters. Generally, zone 1 is low intensity exercise when the body oxidizes fat (fatty acids) as the primary fuel; zone 2 reflects increasing carbohydrate (glucose) oxidation up to the first anaerobic threshold (VT1); zone 3 reflects the onset of anaerobic metabolism and some (though stable) lactic acid build up; zone 4 is the start of the body’s inability to keep up with lactic acid clearance and maintain a normal blood pH (the body does not like becoming acidotic); and zone 5 is at VO2 max.
Wearables depend on algorithms that consider your age and gender, the activity you are doing, your heart rate, and your pace. For a large population, the reported VO2 max correlates well with the average within that large group. But for any individual, there can be a high degree of variation from what is reported by the wearable and what is measured directly by metabolic stress testing. Undergoing metabolic stress testing will allow you to see how well your wearable device predicts your actual (true) numbers.
To get the best information during metabolic stress testing, one needs to gradually exercise to his or her maximal limit (basically to exhaustion). If an individual has certain forms of known heart disease that affect the safety of pushing it to maximal exertion, he/she should first e-mail Vital Fitness Testing before signing up. Very rare individuals may have indolent (undiagnosed) underlying heart disease, and in such individuals, there is a very small risk of complications from pushing it to maximal intensity exercise. You should not have a metabolic stress test (except in a monitored hospital setting) if you know that you have a cardiac problem that puts you at risk. Generally, in healthy individuals, metabolic stress testing is very safe. All studies at Vital Fitness Testing will be done with a physician in attendance with close monitoring throughout. The test will be stopped if any concerning symptoms, physical findings, or heart rate irregularities arise during testing.
You should take your routine asthma medications and bring any rescue inhalers. If you want to see if exercise-induced asthma is limiting you during exercise, you can have pre- and post-exercise pulmonary function tests (PFTs) as an add-on. If you use an inhaler before exercise, bring that inhaler for your study.
The short answer is hard work! Increasing zone 2 training will build your aerobic fitness base. Adding some high intensity interval repeats (tempo runs and 2-5 minute intervals) will help increase your anaerobic threshold and VO2 max. Most trainers and running coaches recommend 80% of training within the zone 2 heart rate range and 20% at higher interval intensities. If older, a 90:10% breakdown may be more reasonable.
Depending on your workout, weight training may help your aerobic and anaerobic measures, though not as much as endurance type activity (walking, running, rowing, biking, elliptical, etc.). However, strength training is very important for maintaining muscle mass, muscle and bone strength, stability, and improving lean body mass. For older adults, strength training should be a compliment to cardio-type training.
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