Sports Medical Examination

Medical what…? This weekend I plan to get a medical examination to find out more about my current fitness level, my ability to train for running events and to gain some insights on my heart rate zones.

Sports medical examinations are very common for professional athletes, but a little less common among ‘normal’ people. A shame, really, because it never hurts to check if everything works as it should and if your body can take the burden of training for running events. Every now and then someone I know takes a test like this, and they are always enthusiastic about the insights it gave them.

For me, I would like to get some insights into my current fitness after
struggling with an injury for the past couple weeks and find out more about my heart rate zones to use for my training schedules.

I have been running with a sports watch that allows for heart rate readings
on my wrist. In theory, this would allow me to train using a heart rate based
schedule. In practice, I always struggle to find the right pace with the
required HR zone as my heart rate rises quite fast, leaving me doubting whether the standard zones would be accurate for me. One way to find out more about your HR zones is to get a medical examination during which they use an ECG and check our your VO2 Max and more.

After doubting for months whether I should look into this test, an exciting
decision (which I will tell you more about in the next blog!) made it very
relevant to find out more. My insurance policy covers almost all of the costs
of this test, and the examination center offers testing on Saturdays – perfect!
So that’s that, I made the call and tomorrow I am scheduled for a test on the treadmill.

Wish me luck…!