A maximal oxygen uptake test during ice skating

The purpose of this study was to develop a test of maximal oxygen uptake during ice skating and to determine its reproducibility. The workloads of the max Vo2test consisted of skating 3 min on a 140 m oval course around a rink at increasing velocities. Velocities were chosen to increase the oxygen consumption by approximately 300 ml/min with successive workloads. The velocity was elevated until the maximum voluntary physical work capacity was attained. The reproducibility of the procedure was determind by test-retest measurements on 17 hockey players (16–25 yr) at the end of their competitive season. The test-retest correlation for max Vo2was 0.94. There was no significant difference between the mean max Vo2for test 1 (4.04 ± 0.42 liters/min) and test 2 (4.08 ± 0.44 liters/min). Corresponding mean values of 54.7 and 55.3 ml/kg.min found during the ice skating test are similar to values found on a group of college hockey players in a treadmill running test.