Sports Medicine Examination — with Spiroergometry (VO2max)

The most comprehensive pre-participation sports medicine examination at CPM Pavla Koláře, adding exhaled air spiroergometry to the full ergometric stress test. A face mask captures every breath during the graded exercise test, enabling analysis of oxygen uptake, carbon dioxide output, and ventilatory equivalents — from which VO2max and both aerobic and anaerobic thresholds are calculated with precision. This is the examination used by national team athletes, ironman competitors, and marathon specialists who need accurate physiological profiling for training zone calibration.

Spiroergometry combines ergometric exercise testing with breath-by-breath respiratory gas analysis to produce a complete aerobic metabolic profile. The face mask captures inhaled and exhaled air throughout the stepped bicycle protocol, allowing the metabolic cart to compute oxygen uptake (VO2), carbon dioxide production (VCO2), the respiratory exchange ratio (RER), and ventilatory equivalents at every step. From this data, the sports medicine physician calculates the ventilatory anaerobic threshold (VAT) — the point at which ventilation starts rising disproportionately to workload — and the respiratory compensation point (RCP), providing precise heart rate zones for aerobic and threshold training that are measurably more accurate than estimated formulas. VO2max — the maximum oxygen consumption at peak effort — is expressed in ml/kg/min and compared against normative data for the athlete's age, sex, and sport. It is the gold standard measure of cardiorespiratory fitness and one of the strongest predictors of long-term cardiovascular health. Unlike watt output alone, VO2max is normalised for body weight, making it comparable across athletes of different sizes and across time for the same individual. At CPM Pavla Koláře, spiroergometry results are interpreted by a sports medicine physician who can contextualise the data within the athlete's training history, current goals, and race or competition calendar. The full report is used for training zone calibration, preparation for national or international competition, and as a baseline for monitoring fitness adaptations over seasons. It is also used in more clinical contexts — assessing cardiorespiratory reserve in patients with cardiac conditions who want to understand their safe exercise ceiling.