Medical advice results

[arvid]

For the Mille Miglia in Italy(and PBP), you need to provide some sort of paper signed by a doctor that you are in good health. Very funny, since I didn't need one for LEL...
Here in the Netherlands your GP will not provide anything like that. I chose the expensive way and got me a test that's comparable with the one you need to do for getting a racing license.

First there's a long questionnaire with all kinds of useless questions like "how many hours do you train?"
Well... currently I am doing an internship and cycle 80km/day(3hrs). As a commute. But before July it was more like 5 hours a week, average, including the odd audax.

First: Male, born October 1981.
Anyway, the results:
Height: 177cm (paper says 192, but that's a very weird typo)
Weight: 68kg
Fat: 18% (max = 21 (because of higher risk of heart and cardiovascular disease, according to the doctor))
Bloodpressure: 122/82 (I still don't know what this means, but apparently it is ok)
Pulse: 80
Heart: normal tones, no noise
Lungs: no abnormalities
Vision: left 100%, right 65% (I have -1.25 and -1.5 or smth, I wear glasses in traffic >25kph and at presentations/in class)
Locomotor (or at least that's google's translation): Pelvis horizontal, normal leg axis, normal foot arch

Labtests:
Haemoglobin 8.8 mmol/l (normal)
Cholesterol: <3.5 mmol/l (normal) (anyone know why it doesn't give a proper measurement?)

Urinetest:
Albumine: none
Glucose: none

Lung tests:
FVC: 4.75l (93%)
FEV1: 4.34l (101%)
FEV1/FVC 91%
Conclusion: no abnormalities

Rest hearfilm: normal

Exercise test on a bicycle ergometer: starting off with 50W, maximum was 350W after 12 minutes. This gives 5.1W/kg. The paper says that the reason to stop was tiredness, but I disagree with that, unless "overheating" is the same. There was no wind or breeze so there was no way my sweat (and I was wetting the machine with that) was going to evaporate, causing me to stop to prevent overheating.
Anyway: max heartrate was 192, recovery was normal, after 3 mins my heartrate was 130. ECG was normal. Estimate of VO2max is 58.5ml/kg/min (outstanding).

Conclusion: I'm fit and there are no abnormalities with the heart, there is no reason against intense sporting.

Price: 190 euro (some health insurances cover it, but not mine)

Some things could do with a little more explanation. What I googled about the fat percentage is that 18-24 is normal, something like 13-18 is "fit" and about 6-13 is athletic. Last year before LEL is was around 62-63kg, from september on I put on weight, until about april, maxing at about 73kg. That was the first time I got >70kg. In september or august I also started with the 100 push-up challenge, so I was thinking it was muscle, but that might not been true. My aim now is 65kg.
Hemoglobin is also tested everytime I donate blood(dec 2008 first time), and the first time it was >10. Since then it has been going down slowly. Cholesterol is something I'm not even remotely interested in.

Lungs... I have no idea what it means, except I have them and they work.
Power... haven't googled on that yet.
VO2max: Google told me normal is up to 53 or so, but professional cyclists start around 62. I'm somewhere in between, means at least some room for improvement.

[hellymedic]

I am not familiar with using mmol/l for haemoglobin; we use g/dl here and a normal range woul be about 11-16g/dl for a man. If you've been told yours is OK, fine.
Other chemicals within the blood are usually measured in mmol/l (which is a IUPAC standard measure of concentration).
Your cholesterol is fine, as are your weight and fat percentage.

Lung function is something I can explain/handle.
FVC is forced vital capacity, the total amount of air you can exhale after maximum inhalation/inspiration. It's usually about 5 litres. The figures you gave in parentheses are the percentage of that predicted for a person of your age, sex and height.
FEV₁ is the proportion of that air you can expel in the first second. 80-90% is fine, less than 70% would suggest airway/lung disease. There were no obvious signs of asthma at the time you were tested.

Your blood pressure is normal. Textbooks often quote 120/80 as being normal. Blood pressure varies all the time. The upper figure refers to the peak pressure, in millimetres of mercury, when the heart beats (or when that pressure is transmitted to the arm where the pressure is measured a short while later). The lower figure refers to the pressure in the blood vessels between heart beats, also in millimetres of mercury.

Abnormal heart sounds are usually caused by turbulence within the heart, usually due to a structural abnormality like a narrow or leaky valve, buut you don't have these problems.

[arvid]

I know that when haemoglobin is <8.0mmol/l you are not allowed to donate blood.
And I forgot to mention I cycled to the hospital where I was tested: 43km. I was half an hour early though.

On the lungs: my chest is fairly small. Circumference is about 92cm. Icebreaker sizing starts with S at 96.5cm and a bodylength of 171. On bodylength I am halfway between M and L...
It also means I can wait for a sale of the M shirts of yacf 

I know my weight is fine, but I never been this heavy and fit, and I don't need a fat reserve in hot italian hills. 3kg less is a lot more useful.