Mary is a 35 year old female who is currently active. She has reached a plateau
ID: 161876 • Letter: M
Question
Mary is a 35 year old female who is currently active. She has reached a plateau in her exercise program and has become bored with her routine. She is interested in participating in a triathlon but doesn't know how to train. Based on PAR-Q and Health History Form, she does not have any risk factors. Her resting heart rate s 61. Her blood pressure and BMi are in the normal category. She currently exercises 3 times a week, varying her workouts between swimming, running, and biking. She does not monitor her caloric intake but ocnsumes a well-rounded diet. Based on CV Assessment her current VO2max is 45 ml/kg/m.
a) Describe a warm-up, conditioning, and cool down session for this person.
b) What mode would you select for her and why?
c) In training for her triathlon, what pace does she need to maintain to ensure she stays at the appropriate intensity level to improve her VO2?
d) How would you monitor her progress to ensure that the workload is appropriate?
e) Plot a graph for MET/HR Zones.
Explanation / Answer
A) For warming up - Biking for 5-10 mins building the intensity every minute followed by running for 5 minutes at Mary's goal pace. And then before the start of the race swimming for 10 minutes – 5 minutes of building the pace followed by a 5 x 30s sprints.
Cool Down- Cooling down is an essential part of training, as important as warming up. It helps in a lot of ways such as - prevents blood pooling in the legs, and thus starting the recovery process, removing of the toxins and waste products that might have been accumulated due to hard exercise and finally, it helps in delivering new blood in the tired and worn out muscles. A simple cool down routine can be a short easy run, or a ride on a bike. Constant movement after the race is required for at least 10 minutes.
B) Dynamic stretch mode for the full body in slow movements for warm up and static stretches so that there is no extra stress on her body and the pain in muscles due to heavy non systematic workout can be minimised.
C) A VO2 max of 45 ml/kg/min is slightly lower as compared to what should be for an athlete to complete a triathlon at a good pace. I cannot suggest her pace, but I can suggest the method in which she can improve her VO2 . Starting with running short intervals of 800m to moving up to 5000 m of fast running with intervals at 1000m in a set of 5, will increase the VO2 max of Mary.
D) with an effort of constantly increasing the VO2max, at regular intervals , the blood pressure and pulse rate and also the pO2, need to be checked to ensure that the vitals remain constant with an increase in the work load. This would ensure that the workload is appropriate.