Rockport Fitness Walking Test

You can use the Rockport fitness walking test to measure changes to your fitness. This is more of an endurance test and can convert into a VO2 max for ease of measuring.

What's The Point?

VO2 max is considered the best measure of general endurance fitness. The Rockport fitness walking test is a simple, easy way to measure general fitness for almost anyone, and convert their score into a VO2 max.

What You Need

  • A 400 metre track
     
  • A stopwatch
     
  • An assistant

How Do You Perform The Test?

  • Record your weight prior to the test
     
  • Warm up
     
  • Walk one mile (1609 metres) as quickly as possible
     
  • Record your time to complete the walk
     
  • Immediately on finishing the walk, measure your heart rate (beats per minute) a heart rate monitor is best for this. If not, take your pulse for 20 seconds and multiply it by three
     
  • Calculate your VO2 max as explained below

What Results You'll See

Try to conduct the test on a windless day for consistency.

You can calculate your VO2 max as follows:

132.853 - (0.0769 Weight) - (0.3877 Age) + (6.315 Gender) - (3.2649 Time) - (0.1565 Heart rate)

Where:

  • Weight is in pounds (lbs)
  • Gender Male = 1 and Female = 0
  • Time is expressed in minutes and 100ths of minutes
  • Heart rate is in beats/minute
  • Age is in years

What's Being Measured Again?

This is an effective way for almost anyone to measure their overall fitness.

 

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