The Exercise Test

Me and my buddy, Frank ( lab director)

On Monday I did , what I hope was the last of the “poke and prod Steve” tests for the year. This particular study was designed to see how exercise effects my lung function, specifically my airway resistance ( in lay terms…does exercise cause my breathing passages to constrict? ). They decided to use the bike for this test because it gave them more precise data on the workload they were subjecting me to. They also allowed me to use my inhalers as much as I needed to during the testing, which is something new.

From start to finish, the test took about 2 hours. I was able to stay on the bike for just over 20 minutes and achieved a maximum work load of 110 watts. By comparison, last years test I only lasted 10 minutes on the bike, but was able to get to 120 watts. If you’ve never done a stress test on a bike, it’s kinda like riding up the side of a mountain in high gear. Anyways, at around the 20 minute mark, it was getting extremely hard to breath and pedal, and my blood pressure got so high that they decided stop the test. I was so nauseated, it was all I could do , not to puke.

So, what was the result? I wont know until they sift through all the data, but from what little I could gather, it’s not the duration of exercise that seems to set me off…it’s the intensity! I’ll post the final results when I get them.