As part of Elite Medicine’s focus on Performance and Longevity, I recently had the opportunity to assess my own performance with a wonderful local company, The Endurance Edge. Located in Cary, Chris Newport and her team are setup to help individuals assess a number of health metrics. These metrics are a useful way to asses one’s progress toward optimizing not just lifespan, but healthspan, a term that encompasses how healthy one is during the time we’re here on earth.
For my session with Chris, I underwent a variety of testing (with fun pictures).
The Setup – Chris Newport with The Endurance Edge is a serious rock star
1. Resting metabolic rate – this tells us how many calories are needed at a baseline to support normal daily functioning before we have added in any activity. This 20-minute test had me lay down and be still while measuring CO2 production as a marker of metabolism.
Resting Metabolic Rate
2. Percent body fat – there are many ways to measure this. The Endurance Edge uses calipers; a tried-and-true method when used by an experienced operator. Immersion Pods and DEXA scanning are alternative methods.
3. Grip strength – there is remarkable data on grip strength correlating with all-cause and disease-specific mortality, future function, bone mineral density, fractures, cognition and depression, and problems associated with hospitalization.
Grip Strength
4. Exercise testing – this was the main event and involves either a treadmill, stationary bicycle, or even rowing. Wearing a facemask, you will go through increasingly challenging exercise. It takes about 20 minutes. Simultaneously, lactate is tested through a painless ear prick. This testing (and Endurance Edge’s analysis) generates heart rate zones, VO2 Max, lactate thresholds, and much more. This data is really useful for targeted exercise planning that helps more effectively meet fitness goals. I was surprised to learn that my Zone 2, for example, was at a much lower heart rate than expected!
Walking to start…
Overall, I walked away with a much better understanding of where I stand compared to age and sex-based norms for the various metrics. It also gave me some clear goals and direction of how to improve my performance. Now I have goals related to percent body fat and VO2 max (maximal oxygen consumption – the gold standard measure of aerobic capacity and cardiovascular fitness), as well as ideas for how to train in specific heart rate zones. Honestly, I think I can do better and now have some goals on how to improve for next year when I do it again!
This data is, of course, just one point in time, though it can help to gauge your overall fitness and also be compared on repeat testing in subsequent years.
If you are interested in your own healthspan, performance and longevity, discuss with an Elite Medicine provider today!
