Comparison of Cardiorespiratory Fitness Testing Measures in Children

There is currently an exponential increase in the prevalence of childhood obesity thus warranting the demand to appropriately measure and evaluate cardiorespiratory fitness within educational settings. The aims of this study were to (1) compare measured peak oxygen consumption (VO₂peak), heart rate peak (HRpeak), and 1-min heart rate recovery (HRRec) responses obtained using a GXTmax and the PACER test; and (2) compare the VO₂peak from the GXTmax and PACER test to a PACER prediction equation (ScottEqua).

This study included 32 (16 boys) children. Despite not having maturational assessments on these children, we limited the subject's age range from 10-11 year old's to decrease the possibility of including additional variability in pubertal status. The participants were classified by body mass index for age and sex percentiles (BMI%) as Healthy-Weight (HW BMI% ≤ 85^th percentile) or At-Risk (AR BMI% > 85^th percentile). Participants completed the GXTmax and PACER tests while wearing a portable metabolic system to measure VO₂peak; and these measures were compared to the estimated VO₂peak using the ScottEqua. Group mean differences and correlation analysis were used to compare the testing and predictive procedures.

We found no significant differences between the GXTmax and PACER VO₂peak; however, the Scott Equa VO₂peak was significantly greater than these measures. HRpeak was significantly greater during the GXTmax; but no significant HRRec were found.

The PACER and GXTmax provide similar VO₂peak measures; however, PACER prediction equations should be used with caution in children 10-11 years.