Comparability of Absolute and Body-Related Performance Capacity in Ergometry

In the older literature concerning physiology, physiological performance indicators, such as V O 2max, heart volume, or exercise performance are mostly published without relation to individual body parameters. In Germany it is still a convention to characterize the critical heart weight as “500 g” [6, 8,11], without regard to the constitution of the athletes. In recent studies, however, there is an increasing tendency to uniformly calculate all physiological results in relation to body weight, in spite of the fact that, for example, Astrand and Rodahl wrote in 1977: “In work and exercise where the body is lifted (as in walking or running), the oxygen uptake should be related to the body weight” [1].