The physical activity specialist Félix Vidal Díaz (Concepción, Chile, 1984) analyzed certain health indicators during the physical exercise in non-frail people aged 80 or over, without reaching their maximum effort, and studied the application of a specific aerobic training periodized, that is to say everything exercise performed continuouslywhich varies the intensity as you progress through said workout program.
In your case, used the exercise bike and, as an indicator of intensity, he used heart rate at relative intensities ranging from low to medium and high to see how it benefits the condition of the heart, lungs and muscles. Depending on the results of your doctoral thesis, read at the Public University of Navarra (UPNA)These specific exercise programs can improve cardiovascular health and quality of life in older adults, thereby promoting healthy aging.
“When we consider the exercise as medicine — underlines Félix Vidal — it is associated with numerous benefits, the most important of which is perhaps the improvement of cardiorespiratory fitness. This concept reflects the body’s ability to perform sustained physical activities and is closely linked to disease prevention and improving quality of life.
To evaluate the cardiorespiratory fitness, is used as cardiopulmonary exercise test diagnostic tool (CPET), which provides “the integrated response of the cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic systems to a progressive increase in workload”. “This physiological test, relatively non-invasive and dynamic, makes it possible to evaluate responses at rest, during exercise, both at maximum and without reaching it, and during recovery, thus providing relevant information for decision-making clinical”, explains the author of the thesis, supervised by Mikel Izquierdo Redín, professor at the UPNA Faculty of Health Sciencesand Cristian Cofré Bolados, professor at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Santiago de Chile.
Aging reduces cardiovascular fitness
He researcher indicates that cardiorespiratory capacity decreases with age and “several factors can limit it, including heart and lung function, metabolism and muscle mass.” “Maintaining good cardiorespiratory fitness may be essential for healthy adult life, since the body’s peak oxygen consumption during exercise is a powerful and independent predictor for anticipating health outcomes, such as those related to cardiovascular mortality and morbidity or to the presence of chronic diseases or conditions that affect it,” he describes.
THE thesis of Félix Vidal focused on the assessment of aerobic functional capacity in non-frail octogenarians using cardiopulmonary exercise testing. To do this, he carried out two studies: one, descriptive, which measured certain physiological parameters while the intensity of the exercise was lower than the maximum effort that the person can achieve; and another, which evaluated a high-intensity aerobic training program to see the improvement in these parameters compared to the first type of exercise. According to their conclusions, “it is not necessary to reach maximum aerobic capacity to obtain cardiovascular, pulmonary and muscular reference values”.
THE search for Félix Vidal was the first to measure and analyze in detail certain health indicators when exercising in people aged 80 or older, without reaching their maximum effort, and applying a specific training program to see how these submaximal parameters improve. This research provides new data that can help design more appropriate exercise programs to improve the health and quality of life of older adults.
Brief CV
Felix Vidal He qualified in Chile as a physical education teacher and later completed a master’s degree in physical activity biology at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) and the University of Jyväskylä (Finland). Doctorate in Health Sciences at the Public University of Navarra.
During his professional career, he was professor in several Chilean universities (Santiago de Chile, Santo Tomás and Andrés Bello), teaching subjects on exercise physiology, research methodology, statistics and investigative processes. Currently, he works as a methodology specialist at the National Sports Institute of his home country, within the Promesas Chile program, which aims to strengthen the potential of young athletes (from 9 to 24 years old), in the first stages of their sporting career. . , to guide them towards high performance.
