Reference values for cardiorespiratory response and fitness on the treadmill in a 20- to 85-year-old population.

Background: Existing reference values for clinical exercise testing have been derived from small nonrandom samples, lacking women and older individuals and some with poor or no maximal end criteria. The objective was to study the cardiorespiratory response during maximal exercise in a representative predominantly Caucasian sample of men and women.

Methods: Nine hundred four randomly sampled men and women, 20 to 85 years old, exercised on a treadmill to exhaustion.