Cardiorespiratory variables in middle-aged men.

The purpose of this investigation was to assess the relationship among selected physican and cardiorespiratory variables in active men, aged 40-59 years. Thirty-one subjects who had been running for only an average of five years volunteered for treadmill testing, running to volitional exhaustion. For the total group (40-59 yrs), significant negative correlations were found between age and maximal heart rate (HR max) and age and maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max), suggesting an inverse relationship between these variables. In both the 40-49 and the 50-59 yr groups, significant positive correlation coefficients were obtained between VO2 max (liters/min) and VO2 max (ml/kg/min), between VO2 max (ml/kg/min) and O2 pulse (ml/kg/min), and between VO2 max (liters/min) and V E max (maximal pulmonary ventilation) liters/min), In both these groups, resting heart rate (HR rest) was significantly positively related to HR max and also to HR 1 min after recovery (1 min rec). Overall, however, the correlation coefficients between selected variables were low, implying that the evaluation of cardiorespiratory variables in these age groups should be based upon several variables.