General-Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing

Cardiopulmonary exercise testing is a diagnostic tool to help identify and evaluate problems with exercising.  It examines the heart, lungs and muscle and how they work together during exercise. This testing measures such values as VO2max, anaerobic threshold, and calories burned at different intensities of exercise.  If one of the components is found to be weaker than the others, cardiopulmonary rehabilitation (endurance training) and sometimes medications can be used to improve exercise. Even if there aren’t any problems, testing can be used to help guide training and improve performance.