Abstract

Background The interpretation of cardiopulmonary fitness values is based on previously published standard reference values In other situations this may cause considerable inaccuracies since cardiorespiratory fitness in a specific population is determined by physical activity habits geographic living area body composition genetics and other factors thus reference values may differ significantly among various populations The objective of this study was to determine cardiorespiratory values measured as maximal oxygen uptake for young Malawian adults and compare these values with the reference values established for other foreign populations Methods This was a cross sectional study involving 133 62 males and 71 females apparently healthy young adults aged from 20 to 29 years randomly selected from the Malawian population Participants performed the Rockport submaximal treadmill exercise test Measures of body weight post-exercise heart rate and time to walk one mile were obtained and used to predict VO2max as a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness Results MeanVO2max was53 9 12 5 mL kg-1 min-1 for males and38 8 12 0for females indicating excellent cardiorespiratory fitness for males and good cardiorespiratory fitness for females according to the cooper institute data published by the American College of Sports Medicine ACSM Conclusion Cardiorespiratory fitness measured as VO2max for apparently healthy young Malawian adults have been provided and appear to be within similar ranges as those of some other foreign populations