The purpose of this study was to assess the validity of the American College of Sports Medicine's (ACSM's) submaximal treadmill running test in predicting Vo2max. Twenty-one moderately well-trained men aged 18-34 years performed 1 maximal treadmill test to determine maximal oxygen uptake (M Vo2max) and 2 submaximal treadmill tests using 4 stages of continuous submaximal exercise. Estimated Vo2max was predicted by extrapolation to age-predicted maximal heart rate (HRmax) and calculated in 2 ways: using data from all submaximal stages between 110 b/min and 85% HRmax (P Vo2max-All), and using data from the last 2 stages only (P Vo2max-2). The measured Vo2max was overestimated by 3% on average for the group but was not significantly different to predicted VO2max (1-way analysis of variance [ANOVA] p = 0.695; M Vo2max = 53.01 ± 5.38; P Vo2max-All = 54.27 ± 7.16; P Vo2max-2 = 54.99 ± 7.69 ml/kg/min), although M Vo2max was not overestimated in all the participants—it was underestimated in 30% of observations. Pearson's correlation, standard error of estimate (SEE), and total error (E) between measured and predicted VO2max were r = 0.646, 4.35, 4.08 ml/kg-1/min (P VO2max-All) and r = 0.642, 4.21, 3.98 ml/kg/min (P VO2max-2) indicating that the accuracy in prediction (error) was very similar whether using P Vo2max-All or P VO2max-2, with up to 70% of the participants predicted scores within 1 SEE (4 ml/kg/min) of M Vo2max. In conclusion, the ACSM equation provides a reasonably good estimation of VO2max with no difference in predictive accuracy between P VO2max-2 and P VO2max-All, and hence, either approach may be equally useful in tracking an individual's aerobic fitness over time. However, if a precise knowledge of Vo2max is required, then it is recommended that this be measured directly.
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