The Importance of Aerobic Capacity

heI was looking at the full-text of this study earlier.  The study was loooking at the effects of a single exercise session on inflammation, but that wasn't what caught my eye.

Subjects were separated into two groups based only on their VO2max.  The baseline characteristics of each group were then listed.  Here's a few of the characteristics:

	Highly Fit	Moderately Fit
Body Fat %	13.5	22
Waist (cm)	81.2	90.1
VO2max	53.9	39.3
Average Caloric Intake	3,016	2,395

These are huge differences in fatness among the two groups.  Of course, the difference in VO2max didn't happen by magic, the highly fit group most likely trained harder. Also note that the fit group consumed significantly more calories on average.  But I still think it's pretty amazing that just one variable, aerobic capacity, is so closely related to body fat measures.