Figure 2. Pulmonary V˙_O2 response to step exercise of moderate, heavy and severe intensity before (▪) and after (□) four weeks of either saline infusion as a placebo (upper panel) or recombinant human erythropoietin treatment (lower panel) in a representative subject from each of the groups (the same as in Fig. 1).

The vertical broken line indicates the end of the period of baseline cycling (at 20 W). Note the increased V˙_O2,peak and extended time to exhaustion during severe exercise following recombinant human erythropoietin treatment.