The purpose of present study was to assess the relationship between anaerobic threshold (AT) and performances in three different distance races (i.e., 5 km, 10 km, and 10 mile). AT, VO2 max, and related parameters for 17 young endurance runners aged 16--18 years tested on a treadmill with a discontinuous method. The determination of AT was based upon both gas exchange and blood lactate methods. Performances in the distance races were measured within nearly the same month as the time of experiment. Mean AT-VO2 was 51.0 ml . kg-1 . min-1 (2.837 l . min-1), while VO2 max averaged 64.1 ml . kg-1 . min-1 (3.568 l . min-1). AT-HR and %AT (AT-VO2/VO2 max) were 174.7 beats . min-1 and 79.6%, respectively. The correlations between VO2 max (ml . kg-1 . min-1) and performances in the three distance races were not high (r = -0.645, r = -0.674, r = -0.574), while those between AT-VO2 and performances was r = -0.945, r = -0.839, and r = -0.835, respectively. The latter results indicate that AT-VO2 alone would account for 83.9%, 70.4%, and 69.7% of the variance in the 5 km, 10 km, and 10 mile performances, respectively. Since r = -0.945 (5 km versus AT-VO2) is significantly different from r = -0.645 (5 km versus VO2 max), the 5 km performance appears to be more related to AT-VO2 than VO2 max. It is concluded that individual variance in the middle and long distance races (particularly the 5 km race) is better accounted for by the variance in AT-VO2 expressed as milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight than by differences in VO2 max.

he "visceral fat obesity" refers to the condition of excess intra-abdominal fat (IF), which places people having this type of excess fat at high risk for obesity-related metabolic disorders, such as hyperglycemia and dyslipidemia. The Japan Society for the Study of Obesity (JASSO) 1 originally defined visceral fat obesity in Japanese as having an IF area (IFA) >100 cm 2 and indicated that such people tend to have 1 or more metabolic disorders. 1 Nakamura et al reported that approximately 62% of patients with coronary artery disease have an IFA =100 cm 2 or more, 2 and Banno et al found that sleep-disordered breathing was closely associated with obesity. 3 JASSO used a cross-sectional study design to validate the cutoff value for IFA of 100 cm 2 for the diagnosis of visceral fat obesity, 1 but intervention studies for assessing an appropriate target value that can be used for people who reduce their IF significantly have been lacking, and it is unclear whether, or at what point, decreasing IF improves metabolic disorders.There are several studies of the effects of menopause on the relationship of IF with metabolic diseases. Excess IF deposition is more prevalent in post-menopausal women than in pre-menopausal women 4 although it occurs more frequently in males of all ages. 5 Hunter et al 6 and Gower et al 7 showed that the IFA and the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) were positively correlated and that each average in post-menopausal women was higher than that in pre-menopausal women. The results of the study by Rebuffe-Scrive et al 8 suggest that one of the reasons for this phenomenon is the more pronounced activation of lipoprotein lipase in the omental adipose tissue of postmenopausal women than in that of pre-menopausal women. The cutoff value for the IFA derived by JASSO 1 was defined using a combination of pre-and post-menopausal women; the standards were, therefore, not established while considering the presence of menopause.Based on these results, the current study assesses JASSO's visceral fat obesity IFA cutoff value of 100 cm 2 in pre-and post-menopausal women and also assesses the IFA target value after a weight reduction program. We tested 2 related hypotheses: (1) the cutoff value would be valid when applied to a group consisting of only pre-or post-menopausal women and (2) it would remain valid in each group after reducing the IFA. Methods ParticipantsAdvertisements were placed in local newspapers and on bulletin boards in Toride City in Ibaraki Prefecture and Abiko City in Chiba Prefecture in Japan to locate potential