VO₂max Step Test Calculator

About this calculator

This step test estimates VO2max from recovery heart rate rather than steady-state exercise heart rate — you step up and down at a fixed cadence for three minutes, then measure your pulse in the first 15 seconds after stopping, and that recovery heart rate is plugged into the Queen's College (McArdle) regression equation, which was derived separately for men and women from validated lab testing against directly measured oxygen uptake.

College fitness programs, physical education classes and researchers favor this protocol because a fixed three-minute step duration and a single post-exercise pulse count make it fast to administer to groups, unlike protocols that require reaching and holding a genuine steady-state heart rate during the test itself — the tradeoff is that recovery-based estimates tend to be somewhat less precise for individuals at the fitness extremes.

This calculator takes your recovery heart rate after the three-minute step test and your sex, and returns your estimated VO2max using the Queen's College regression.