Background: Although walking is the most common exercise modality in daily life for most humans, running and cycling are the most applied exercise modalities during maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) testing. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and validity of walking as exercise modality during VO2max testing.
Methods: Sixteen participants (25±3 years, 172±9 cm, 69±15 kg, and VO2max 50±4 mL/kg/min) performed four incremental running- and walking VO2max tests (two tests in each condition) within 2-3 weeks. During the walking condition, the speed was set to 7 km/h, and the treadmill incline increased by 2.5% each min until exhaustion. Results from these tests were validated against a running protocol with 5.3% treadmill incline where the speed increased by 1 km/h each min until exhaustion.
Results: The walking protocol achieved similar reliability values for absolute and relative VO2max when compared to the running condition. No significant differences in VO2max were observed between test session 1 and 2 for any of the tests. Significantly higher absolute VO2max (3.39±0.77 vs. 3.50±0.84 L/min; trivial difference) were observed in the running versus walking condition, while no significant differences in relative VO2max, BLa or Borg were detected. CVs for absolute and relative VO2max between the analyzed exercise modalities were ~5%.
Conclusions: Although the present participants achieved 2-3% lower VO2max when the walking test protocol was applied, walking seems to be a promising exercise-modality alternative during VO2max testing in clinical settings.
