Squeo Maria Rosaria, Menichini Ilaria, Morviducci Matteo, Spinelli Alessandro, Di Gioia Giuseppe, Maestrini Viviana, Neder J Alberto, Palange Paolo
National Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), Institute of Sport and Science Medicine, Rome, Italy.
Department of Public Health and Infectious Disease, Respiratory and Critical Care Division, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Physiol Rep. 2025 Apr;13(7):e70261. doi: 10.14814/phy2.70261.
Ventilatory efficiency during cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is obtained by relating minute ventilation (V') to CO output (V'CO). Limited information is available regarding exercise ventilatory efficiency in young elite athletes. We assessed ventilatory efficiency in elite athletes; evaluating the influence of sex and/or ESC sport categories; evaluating the agreement between the V'/V'CO slope and nadir in measuring ventilatory efficiency; evaluating differences between subgroups of athletes stratified by ventilatory efficiency. A cohort of 443 elite athletes prospectively underwent CPET. The slope (s) and the intercept of the linear region of the V'/V'CO relationship, the V'/V'CO value at the lactate threshold and the V'/V'CO nadir were used to assess ventilatory efficiency. Male athletes and endurance athletes, both males and females, had higher exercise ventilatory efficiency (p < 0.001). A strong positive correlation was observed between V'/V'CO s and nadir (p < 0.001). Of note, both high (V'/V'CO s < 24) and very high (V'/V'CO s < 22) levels of ventilatory efficiency were associated with greater exercise tolerance (i.e., peak oxygen uptake, maximal power; p < 0.001). The results of our study emphasize the need to include the measurement of ventilatory efficiency in the evaluation of elite athletes, potentially refining their training strategies.
心肺运动试验（CPET）期间的通气效率通过将分钟通气量（V'）与二氧化碳输出量（V'CO）相关联来获得。关于年轻精英运动员运动通气效率的信息有限。我们评估了精英运动员的通气效率；评估性别和/或欧洲心脏病学会（ESC）运动类别对其的影响；评估V'/V'CO斜率与最低点在测量通气效率方面的一致性；评估按通气效率分层的运动员亚组之间的差异。443名精英运动员前瞻性地接受了CPET。使用V'/V'CO关系线性区域的斜率（s）和截距、乳酸阈值时的V'/V'CO值以及V'/V'CO最低点来评估通气效率（译者注：此处原文表述有误，最低点应该是nadir，前面说的是斜率和截距，这里突然说最低点是V'/V'CO值，应该是V'/V'CO nadir才对）。男性运动员以及男性和女性耐力运动员的运动通气效率更高（p < 0.001）。观察到V'/V'CO斜率与最低点之间存在强正相关（p < 0.001）。值得注意的是，通气效率高（V'/V'CO斜率 < 24）和非常高（V'/V'CO斜率 < 22）的水平都与更大的运动耐力相关（即峰值摄氧量、最大功率；p < 0.001）。我们的研究结果强调在精英运动员评估中纳入通气效率测量的必要性，这可能会优化他们的训练策略。
