Posted: March 10, 2005

Science of Sport: The v VO2max Test: Is It Reliable?

By Owen Anderson, Ph. D. (copyright © 2003-2005)

v VO2max, the minimal running speed which elicits VO2max (the maximal rate of oxygen consumption), is an excellent predictor of relative running performance for both elite (1) and non-elite (2) runners. Line up 10 runners according to their vVO2max, from fastest to slowest, and in most cases you will have also lined them up according to their finishing places in distance races, from #1 to #10.

As I have pointed out frequently in the pages of Running Research News, vVO2max can also be used effectively to monitor changes in fitness over the course of a training year, to predict race times in events ranging from 800 meters all the way to the marathon, and to set paces for specific workouts. Numerous methods are available for the direct determination of vVO2max on a laboratory treadmill or on the track, but all of them involve rather elaborate - and expensive - procedures and are thus out of the reach of many coaches and runners.

As a result, field tests have been devised to estimate v VO2max; these tests usually involve running as far as possible on the track in either five (3) or six (4) minutes. The pace established in such a test is believed to provide a reasonable approximation of vVO2max.

But how reliable are such tests? That is, if you complete the field test today and again three days from now, with no change in underlying fitness, will you get essentially the same result, or can there be wide variation in field-test performance? Anecdotally, I have found the tests to be quite reliable, but until now there has been little scientific verification that this is so.

Fortunately, that situation has now been corrected by a group of French researchers (3) who administered a five-minute test to a group of 18 national-level male runners and a collection of 40 local-level runners on two occasions, within a maximal period of three weeks. Both the tests and re-tests were conducted on the same synthetic running track under similar meteorological conditions; a 10-minute warm-up preceded each run, a sound signal was provided every minute during the tests, and a 10-second count-down was given over the last 10 seconds of each effort.

Interestingly enough, the national-level runners actually improved their performance by an average of 15 meters on the second five-minute test, compared to the first. It's possible that the elites may have been fitter for the second test, but it is more likely that they gave harder efforts or else paced themselves more effectively for the second exam, avoiding overly quick or excessively slow starts. At any rate, elite athletes taking a vVO2max field test for the first time should probably re-take the test within a week or so. The second result will probably be faster - and should be used for subsequent workouts and evaluations of fitness progress.

On the other hand, the five-minute test was extremely reliable for the non-elite runners; for any single runner, it was very unlikely that one test would be more than 20 meters longer than the other, and the mean group difference between tests was a paltry eight meters. This is reassuring information. In a worst-case scenario, for example, in which you covered 1300 meters in a five-minute vVO2max test but your true ability was 1320 meters, the resulting paces used for subsequent vVO2max-expanding workouts would be so similar (92 seconds per 400 meters for the former and 91 seconds per 400 for the latter) that the effect on training - and thus on overall gains in fitness - would be slight. ©

References
(1) "The Energetics of Middle-Distance Running," European Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol. 60, pp. 38-43, 1990
(2) "Assessment of Middle-Distance Running Performance in Sub-Elite Young Runners Using Energy Cost of Running," European Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol. 77, pp. 320-325, 1998
(3) "The 5 Min Running Field Test: Test and Retest Reliability on Trained Men and Women," European Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol. 88, pp. 353-360, 2003
(4) "Things Were So Easy until vVO2max and then TlimvVO2max Had to Come Along," Running Research News, Vol. 15(2), pp. 1-5, 1999

To learn about Owen-Anderson's running camps in California, please send a note to Owen at owen@rrnews.com.

Copyright © 1998-2004 by Running Research News