Key Messages
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The Chester step test is a valid and reliable tool for the assessment of aerobic capacity.
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It is an inexpensive, easily
Regular exercise, which improves cardiorespiratory fitness, is a powerful factor in enhancing health and wellbeing. Not only can those with active lifestyles gain substantial health benefits from physical activity but regular exercisers also tend to have healthier lifestyles compared to non-exercisers—being less likely to smoke, suffer fewer minor illnesses, make fewer visits to the doctor and generally eat more healthily.
The assessment of cardiorespiratory fitness commonly assessed by the
To investigate the validity of CST by comparing the results obtained with the results of a Treadmill V̇O2Max test and to estimate its reproducibility with apparently healthy subjects from a wide cross-section of ages and fitness levels.
Sixty-eight subjects (mean age 30.6±9.7 years; range 18–52 years) completed a Treadmill V̇O2Max test on one occasion and the CST on a further two separate occasions. All subjects were volunteers, who were apparently healthy, free from medical contraindication to vigorous exercise and not taking any form of medication that would depress heart rate scores. All subjects signed an informed consent form.
Subjects were asked to refrain from eating, smoking or drinking tea, coffee or alcohol for at
The subjects were a group of apparently healthy males and females from a wide range of ages (18–52 years) and fitness levels (25–68 ml O2/kg/min) (Table 1).
Table 2 illustrates the high overall correlation (r=0.92; P<0.001) between V̇O2Max and the results of the CST, with the marginally higher values for females (r=0.95; P<0.001) than for males (r=0.87; P<0.001). The regression equation (V̇O2Max=0.964×1.007(CST); P<0.0005) further illustrates the ability of CST to predict V̇O2Max (Fig. 2), whilst
These results demonstrated that the CST is a valid predictor of aerobic capacity in males and females from a wide range of ages and fitness levels. However, the overall standard error of estimate of ±3.9 ml O2/kg/min means that its accuracy of prediction, in subjects with aerobic capacity values ranging from 25 to 68 ml O2/kg/min, is approximately 5–15%. The estimate was found to be slightly more accurate in females than males (standard error of estimate for males and females was ±4.3 and ±3.1 ml O2
The Chester step test was shown to provide a valid test for the estimation of aerobic capacity within this group, who were representative of males and females from a wide range of ages and fitness levels. The error of measurement is sufficiently small and suggests that this method is well suited to monitoring changes in aerobic capacity in rehabilitation settings. Key Messages The Chester step test is a valid and reliable tool for the assessment of aerobic capacity. It is an inexpensive, easily
Ethical approval: Centre for Exercise and Nutrition Science Ethics Committee.
Funding: None.
Conflicts of interest: None.
Clothe weight (set at 0.5 kg), age, sex and measured height were set, and the “standard” setting was used. Physical capacity was indirectly assessed as the relative maximum rate of oxygen consumption (VO2max) using the submaximal Chester Step Test (Sykes and Roberts, 2004) that all WT are familiar with as part of their mandatory fitness for work assessment. WTs underwent a six to 10-minute step test and the stepping rate was increased and heart rate recorded every two minutes.
Particularly, the CST requires less space than the other field tests, which allows it to be easily applied in different settings, including inpatient, outpatient and home-based settings.16 The CST is an externally paced, incremental and multistage test, designed to assess exercise capacity in healthy individuals.15,16 Recently, it has been validated to assess exercise capacity in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).15