Validation of two field tests to determine maximum oxygen consumption in university students at high altitude

Introduction: Various research has used field tests to establish cardiorespiratory fitness from VO2max obtained; however, under high ltitude conditions there may be variations that influence the behavior of this variable untrained and untrained healthy subjects. Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the VO2max obtained by means of two field tests: Cooper Run Test and Shuttle Run Test 20 meters (CRT and SRT-20m) and the values obtained by ergospirometry in trained university students above 2600 masl. Method:Descriptive cross-sectional study;30 trained subjects (8 women 22 men) participated, with ± an average age of 19.0 to 2.2 years for women and 20.1 ± to 2.1 years for men. A one-way variance analysis was applied; a post hoc analysis was subsequently performed with the Games- Howell procedure which is most powerful in small samples (p<0.01). Results: No significant differences were founding the VO2max mean for SRT-20m and the direct method, however, with respect to the CRT, differences were presented (p <0.01), reflecting the higher accuracy of the SRT-20m test to estimate the VO2max in the sample evaluated. Conclusions: Our esults suggested that SRT-20m predicted VO2max closely to data reported in ergospirometry in both men and women living at high altitude. Additional research with larger sample sizes is warranted.