Preparing for ergometric testing: what to do in the 24 hours before

An ergometric test measures your current capacity. If you turn up tired, dehydrated or with coffee in your system, the measurement will still be correct — but it will measure a worse version of you, and the training plan built on it will be wrong too. That is exactly why the instructions below exist.

Exercise

• Avoid heavy, strenuous exercise for 24 hours before. Light walking or easy mobility work is not a problem; a hard strength or interval session the day before is.
• Sleep normally. One bad night shows up in your heart rate and in how hard the effort feels.
• If you are injured or ill, or if you have a condition that taking part could make worse, do not do the test. Call us and we will move it — there is no charge.

What to wear

• Sports shorts or trousers and a T-shirt, suitable for the conditions. For girls and women, a sports bra.
• In the lab: athletic shoes suitable for running or cycling.
• For field testing: shoes suitable for the surface where the tests take place — football boots for a football pitch, basketball shoes for a basketball court.
• Take off jewellery, watches and dangling earrings — they can get caught in the equipment.

Food and fluids

• 24 hours before: choose foods high in carbohydrates (potatoes, pasta, cereals, fruit). This is not the day to experiment with new foods.
• 4 hours before: a light carbohydrate meal.
• 2 hours before: avoid eating.
• Caffeine: avoid coffee, cola, tea and energy drinks on the day of the tests. Caffeine raises your heart rate and distorts the picture.
• Alcohol and smoking: avoid both for 24 hours before.
• Hydration: over the last 12 hours drink water or isotonic drinks regularly — especially on hot days. During the tests you can drink normally, and keep drinking afterwards to replace what you have lost.

During the test

• Warm-up and stretching are essential before every test — we do them together.
• Cool down afterwards. Especially after a test to exhaustion, keep walking or jogging easily for about 5 minutes.
• Arrive 10 minutes early. The stress of running late raises your resting heart rate and you start off already loaded.

What to bring with you

• Your ID card or passport — the number is recorded in your account on the platform and has to match.
• A towel and a bottle of water.
• If you take medication regularly, tell us which. Some affect heart rate and we take that into account when interpreting the results.
• For minors: a parent or guardian must come with you and give consent.

If something went wrong

Did you drink coffee out of habit? Did you train hard yesterday because you forgot? Tell us before we start. It is nothing to be embarrassed about and it is usually not a reason to cancel — but it is information that changes how we read the numbers. A measurement with a known deviation is worth far more than one we think is clean when it is not.

Metabolic and body composition measurements

If your appointment is for a resting metabolic rate (RMR) measurement or body composition, the instructions are different and quite a bit stricter — fasting, no exercise from the day before, staying at rest before the measurement. See the relevant preparation page.

Want to see exactly what the assessment includes? Read what we measure and what each result means.