Oxygen Consumption at 30 W of Exercise Is Surrogate for Peak Oxygen Consumption in Evaluation of Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Young-Adult African-American Females

Body mass index (BMI) is negatively correlated with cardiorespiratory fitness, measured by maximal or peak oxygen consumption (). measurements require heavy aerobic exercise to near exhaustion which increases the potential for adverse cardiovascular events. This study tests the hypothesis that measured at a fixed submaximal workload of 30 W is a surrogate for . We studied 42 normotensive African-American female university students, 18–25 years of age. We measured , blood pressure, and at a 30 W exercise workload and computed BMI. We found significant negative correlations between BMI and (, ) and between BMI and at 30 W (, ). Compared to , at 30 W increased the significance of the negative correlation with BMI. The heart rate-systolic pressure product at 30 W was positively correlated with BMI (, ) and negatively correlated with (, ). The positive correlation between BMI and the heart rate-systolic pressure product and the greater negative correlation between and BMI at 30 W of exercise than that at exercise to fatigue suggest that normalized measurements of at the fixed exercise workload of 30 W could be useful surrogates for measurements of .