Contents
- What it measures
- Endurance
- Effort
- Maximal effort
- Duration
- about 20 min for a group
- Equipment
- cones, tape measure, audio track
Set-up
Two lines 20 m apart, marked with cones or tape, and the audio track. Leave room between athletes.
How to run it
Run from one line to the other, reaching the line on each beep. The pace starts slowly and rises every minute (Léger 1988: 8.5 km/h, then 0.5 km/h more each minute; some versions start at 8 km/h). The athlete stops after missing the line twice in a row (some versions allow three): keep the same rule every time.
What to record
The speed of the last stage completed, in km/h. Some sources turn it into an estimated VO2max with equations published for ages 8 to 19 and for adults.
By age
- Under 10 Not offered
- 10 to 12 Not offered
- 13 to 15 Opt-in with consent
- 16 and over Offered
Everywhere: no ranking of children, no public results, no selection from results. Under 16: parental consent and the child's own agreement. A health check before any maximal test, and stop if you feel unwell.
Reading the result
- Compare the athlete with themselves: same protocol, same surface, same measuring method. Paak publishes no age norms.
- No published retest figure: a small change may simply be day-to-day variation.
- Maximal aerobic speed (MAS): the speed of the last completed stage of a progressive test like the shuttle run is often used as an estimate of MAS. It stays an estimate: a field test’s end speed can differ by up to 3 km/h from the speed measured in a lab. Do not compare an « MAS » from this test with one from another test.
- Some sources convert this result into an estimated VO2max. It stays an estimate, never a measured value, and Paak does not show it for children.
On the test day
On the test day this test comes in position 10 of 13: short tests first, maximal efforts last, after about 5 minutes of rest (athletic test manual of the Deutscher Fechter-Bund and IAT Leipzig, 2023).
Dashed border: maximal effort. Gold: this test.
Before: Repeated sprints (6 x 35 m) After: Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test, level 1 The field tests guide