Blood Oxygen meters - Oximeters

jgsi
jgsi Posts: 5,062
edited August 2011 in Training, fitness and health
One for the Doc here..
This kit can be had for 20 quid or so from Amazon nowadays and measures SpO2

Blood oxygen levels important in training matters, but has anyone any experience in using the data from these meters in analysing increased fitness levels for competition?
Basically, any use?

Comments

  • ut_och_cykla
    ut_och_cykla Posts: 1,594
    They the ones you put on your finger tip/ear lobe - probably no help at all. mostly for people with severe lung disease who have trouble getting good enough O2 saturation in blood. not a problem for anyone mildly healthy. For endurance its more about how much your blood can carry - not how much/ % of what there is is actually carrying O2
  • jgsi
    jgsi Posts: 5,062
    They are....just an idea.. anything to help monitor progress about increased levels of fitness as just having a blitz to prep for last race of season end of the month - and sometimes one wonders if pushing yourself thru turbo sessions in the week is making any difference and a piece of kit to give you numbers is sometimes the bit of incentive you need.
  • Murr X
    Murr X Posts: 258
    JGSI wrote:
    They are....just an idea.. anything to help monitor progress about increased levels of fitness as just having a blitz to prep for last race of season end of the month - and sometimes one wonders if pushing yourself thru turbo sessions in the week is making any difference and a piece of kit to give you numbers is sometimes the bit of incentive you need.
    If you are not measuring power then you are not measuring anything relevant.
    Useless data is useless data, you can dress it up and polish it but its still useless.

    The answer is that they are useless to an endurance athlete.

    Murr X
  • furrag
    furrag Posts: 481
    Pulse oximeters will tell you nothing in regards to your fitness. Even the most unfit overweight person will still have good saturations of 95%+. In fact, you could have acceptable oxygen saturations, but still be acidotic. Meh. I could cycle with a face mask and 5L of oxygen, but it wouldn't make me any better as it's not the concentration of oxygen provided to the lungs, but how efficient your body is at gaseous transfer which will make the difference.

    If you want to quantify your fitness, save your £20 and put it into a piggy bank which you can't access until it has £600 in for a powertap.

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