The purpose of this study was to compare the results of 7 commonly used indirect o2max tests to those of a direct o2max test in a constant subject group. Thirty subjects (15 men, 15 women) that were 18 to 35 years old participated in the study. All subjects performed the following tests in random order: direct o2max treadmill test; max Bruce and 85% Bruce treadmill tests; Åstrand-Ryhming and heart rate extrapolation cycle ergometer (CE) tests; Léger shuttle run; 1.5-m run; and the Canadian Aerobic Fitness Test (CAFT) step test. Within subjects, there were no significant differences between the predicted o2max values and the direct o2max values obtained (p 0.05). For the women studied, all predictive tests except for the CAFT had a validity coefficient of 0.80 or greater to the direct o2max test. For this reason, the present study found 6 of the 7 predictive tests to be valid for women 18 to 35 years old. Despite errors of <10% in all predictive tests except for the CAFT, validity coefficients were low for the data from the men`s group, rendering it inconclusive. Overall, for testing women, the maximal Bruce treadmill test and the Åstrand-Ryhming CE test were found to produce the least amount of error with the highest validity coefficient.
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