Is the Ventilatory Efficiency in Endurance Athletes Different?—Findings from the NOODLE Study

Figures

• 

  Figure 1. Visual presentation of participant recruitment procedures. CBC, complete blood count; CPET, cardiopulmonary exercise test; RER, respiratory exchange ratio; VO2, oxygen uptake; RPE, rating of perceived exertion; HRmax, maximal heart rate.

• 

  Figure 2. Interdependency in methods measuring ventilatory efficiency among endurance athletes. VE/VCO2-slope, ventilatory efficiency from start to the first ventilatory threshold; VE/VCO2-Nadir, the lowest 30 s continuous average for ventilatory efficiency; VE/VCO2-Total, ventilatory efficiency from start to peak effort. Panel (A) illustrates a comparison for males, and panel (B) illustrates a comparison for females. Error bars present mean with standard deviation. Black dotted lines represent the recommended cutoffs of 30 and 34. Significant differences with p < 0.001 are marked with (**) and significant differences with p < 0.05 are marked with (*).

• 

  Figure 3. Bland–Altman plots comparing observed with estimated ventilatory efficiency slope by validated models. VE/VCO2-slope, ventilatory efficiency slope from start to first ventilatory threshold. Panel (A) general model by Salvioni et al. [8], panel (B) male model by Salvioni et al. [8], panel (C) female model by Salvioni et al. [8], panel (D) male model by Kleber et al. [17], panel (E) female model by Kleber et al. [17], panel (F) male model by Neder et al. [18], panel (G) female model by Neder et al. [18], panel (H) male by Loe et al. [20], panel (I) female by Loe et al. [20], panel (J) male by Ashikaga et al. [19], panel (K) female model by Ashikaga et al. [19], and panel (L) general model by Sun et al. [10]. All models were validated for the VE/VCO2-slope from the start to the first ventilatory threshold. The central dotted line represents mean bias. The upper and lower dotted lines represent 95% confidence intervals.