Traditional and New Perspectives on Youth Cardiorespiratory Fitness

PURPOSE: This study aimed to review traditional and new perspectives in the interpretation of the development of youth cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). METHODS: We analyzed data from (i) the literature which for 80 yr has been traditionally based on interpretations of peak oxygen uptake (V˙O(2)) in ratio with body mass (BM) and (ii) recent multilevel allometric models founded on 994 (475 from girls) determinations of 10- to 16-yr-olds’ peak V˙O(2) with measures of age, maturity status, and morphological covariates (BM and fat-free mass), and from 10 to 13 yr, 110 peak V˙O(2) determinations of maximum cardiovascular covariates (stroke volume, cardiac output, and arteriovenous oxygen difference). RESULTS: The application of ratio scaling of physiological variables requires satisfying specific statistical assumptions that are seldom met. In direct conflict with the ratio-scaled data interpretation of CRF, multilevel allometric modeling shows that with BM controlled, peak V˙O(2) increases with age but the effect is smaller in girls than boys. Maturity status exerts a positive effect on peak V˙O(2), in addition to those of age and BM. Changes in maximum cardiovascular covariates contribute to explaining the development of CRF, but fat-free mass (as a surrogate for active muscle mass) is the most powerful single influence. With age, maturity status, morphological covariates, and maximum cardiovascular covariates controlled, there remains an unexplained ~4% to ~9% sex difference in peak V˙O(2). CONCLUSIONS: The traditional interpretation of peak V˙O(2) in ratio with BM is fallacious and leads to spurious correlations with other health-related variables. Studies of the development of CRF require analyses of sex-specific, concurrent changes in age- and maturation-driven morphological and maximum cardiovascular covariates. Multilevel allometric modeling provides a rigorous, flexible, and sensitive method of data analysis.