Maximum Exercise Performance and Body Size pp. 167-185
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Authors: Goran Markovic, Dragan Mirkov and Slobodan Jaric
Abstract: The effects of body size on various exercise performance has been studied for decades. However, recent review of literature [32] has shown that there are inconsistencies in normalizing exercise performance for differences in body size. As a consequence, a number of previously reported data on exercise performance have been body size depended, while relationships among different exercise performance tests have been confounded by the effect of body size. Another consequence is that the comparisons of the data obtained in different studies have been often invalid which prevented researchers from establishing normative values for various exercise performance tests applied on particular populations. In this chapter, we discuss how different maximum exercise performance depend on selected indices of body size and what could be the optimal methods for normalizing performance in order to compare different groups of subjects and establish standards for the maximum performance. In particular, we suggest 1) using an allometric normalization method that presumes geometric similarity; 2) classification of exercise performance tests based on particular values of allometric exponents required for normalization, and 3) using a simple “performance index” that represents an individual or group performance relative to a reference population.
