Reflecting on Field Performance Tests of Pediatric Aerobic Fitness: After 30 Years, It Really Is Time to Move on

Welsman, Joanne R.

doi:10.1123/pes.2019-0034

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…A recent resurgence of interest in estimating/predicting peak normalV˙O2 from 20-m shuttle run test (20mSRT) performance, has confused understanding of youth aerobic fitness (Armstrong and Welsman, 2018; Welsman, 2019). The 20mSRT is not a measure of aerobic fitness but a function of willingness to run between two lines 20 m apart whilst keeping pace with audio signals which require the running speed to increase each minute until participants are unwilling or unable to maintain the pace.…”

Section: Confusion In the Development Of Youth Aerobic Fitnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clarity and Confusion in the Development of Youth Aerobic Fitness

Armstrong¹,

Welsman²

2019

Front. Physiol.

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Peak oxygen uptake ( ) is internationally recognized as the criterion measure of youth aerobic fitness, but flawed laboratory assessments and fallacious interpretations of peak in ratio with body mass have confused our understanding of the development of aerobic fitness. Moreover, the recent emergence of specious predictions of peak from performance tests and the promotion of spurious “clinical red flags” and cardiometabolic cut-points have confused our understanding of the relationship between youth aerobic fitness and health. Recent longitudinal studies of 10–18-year-olds using multilevel allometric modeling have empirically demonstrated that peak increases in accord with sex-specific, concurrent changes in age- and maturity status-driven morphological covariates with the timing and tempo of changes specific to individuals. During both cycle ergometry and treadmill running age- and maturity status- driven changes in fat free mass have been revealed as the most powerful morphological influences on the development of youth aerobic fitness. To bring some clarity to current confusion, this paper argues that future studies must be founded on rigorous assessment and interpretation of peak and ensure that they address the development of youth aerobic fitness and its relationship with present and future health in relation to appropriate sex-specific morphological covariates governed by individual biological clocks.

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Section: Confusion In the Development Of Youth Aerobic Fitnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clarity and Confusion in the Development of Youth Aerobic Fitness

Armstrong¹,

Welsman²

2019

Front. Physiol.

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“…In his Editor's Notes in the first volume of Pediatric Exercise Science, Founding Editor Tom Rowland commented that "there is little in the field of pediatric exercise that has stimulated as much emotional debate as the components, interpretation, and values of mass physical fitness testing of children and youth" (42, p. 289). He initiated a dialog in Pediatric Exercise Science (see 38,48), which is rekindled in the present issue by Jo Welsman (55). In her Commentary, she notes that articles predicting aerobic fitness from field performance scores have percolated through Pediatric Exercise Science for 30 years and argues that it really is time to move on from mass performance testing and focus on scientific rigor, or as Rowland (43) pithily commented in 1995, "The horse is dead.…”

Section: Field Performance Testsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Welsman (55) emphasizes that scientific rigor and critical analysis are essential components of pediatric research and challenges the validity and reliability of predictions of peakVO 2 from field performance tests. She describes some of the interpretations of field test scores that have clouded understanding of children's aerobic fitness, its development, and its relationship with current and future health.…”

Section: Field Performance Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Youth Aerobic Fitness

Armstrong

2019

Pediatric Exercise Science

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“…Over the past 25 years, cardiorespiratory fitness research has been plagued by debate around test validity that often stems from differing views between lab-based and public/population health researchers (Rowland 1995;Welsman 2019). Lab-based researchers are perhaps more interested in understanding the mechanistic progression of directly measured oxygen consumption throughout childhood and into adolescence.…”

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Reply to Discussion of “Establishing modified Canadian Aerobic Fitness Test (mCAFT) cut-points to detect clustered cardiometabolic risk among Canadian children and youth aged 9 to 17 years” – The need for foundational fitness research in Canada: is there room for innovation?

Lang

Phillips

Hoffmann

et al. 2020

Appl. Physiol. Nutr. Metab.

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In their editorial, Tremblay and Tomkinson (2020) provided a critical reflection on the modified Canadian Aerobic Fitness Test (mCAFT) and its use in Canadian children and youth. They highlighted that (i) the validity and reliability evidence for the test is outdated in adults and nonexistent in children and youth aged <15 years; (ii) the background validation evidence for the test and prediction equation to estimate peak oxygen consumption (V O 2peak ) is often cited incorrectly in the literature; (iii) the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) exclusion criteria for the mCAFT were very strict and may bias the results; (iv) the mCAFT may not properly control for body weight when estimating V O 2peak ; and (v) using the mCAFT in research on temporal trends and international comparisons in cardiorespiratory fitness is difficult (Tremblay and Tomkinson 2020). While many of the issues raised have merit, we hope to clarify our position for publishing our mCAFT cut-points in Canadian children and youth (Lang et al. 2020). We also want to take this opportunity to highlight the expanding debate in the cardiorespiratory fitness literature which points toward a clear need for innovation and change.In our paper published in this issue (Lang et al. 2020) we established mCAFT cut-points to identify Canadian children and youth at increased risk of poor cardiometabolic health. We used established statistical methods in a large nationally representative sample of Canadians and obtained cut-point values that are considered high (males: 49-46 mL·kg −1 ·min −1 ; females 46-37 mL·kg −1 ·min −1 ) in comparison with previously identified international cut-points obtained using different field-based tests of cardiorespiratory fitness (males: ϳ42 mL·kg −1 ·min −1 ; females: ϳ35 mL·kg −1 ·min −1 ; Ruiz et al. 2016). These results were of concern to us. Furthermore, the mean mCAFT values obtained from the examined CHMS sample were substantially higher than values observed from the pooling of over one million 20-m shuttle-run test scores (Tomkinson et al. 2017). Upon further investigation our conclusions were similar to what Tremblay and Tomkinson concluded: the high mCAFT cut-points may have resulted from the exclusion criteria and/or the validity of the test.Although strict exclusion criteria holds merit, we were less concerned about this scenario given the fact that previous research involving the CHMS identified only small differences in body mass index between those included (23.2 kg·m −2 ) and excluded (24.1 kg·m −2 ) from the mCAFT (Tremblay et al. 2010). Slightly more problematic was the unresolved validity of the mCAFT in children aged <15 years. However, the importance of construct validity (i.e., the ability of the test to provide an accurate representation of what it purports to measure, in this case, V O 2peak in mL·kg −1 ·min −1 ) is relative to the objective of the research. For instance, it is very important to have strong construct validity (i.e., the ability to accurately predict V O 2peak ) when comparing results with ...

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Reflecting on Field Performance Tests of Pediatric Aerobic Fitness: After 30 Years, It Really Is Time to Move on

Cited by 6 publications

References 18 publications

Clarity and Confusion in the Development of Youth Aerobic Fitness

Clarity and Confusion in the Development of Youth Aerobic Fitness

Youth Aerobic Fitness

Reply to Discussion of “Establishing modified Canadian Aerobic Fitness Test (mCAFT) cut-points to detect clustered cardiometabolic risk among Canadian children and youth aged 9 to 17 years” – The need for foundational fitness research in Canada: is there room for innovation?

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