REFERENCE VALUES FOR MAXIMUM WORK CAPACITY IN RELATION TO BODY-COMPOSITION IN HEALTHY DUTCH CHILDREN

Exercise performance is associated with physical development, For sick children, there is a need for parameters reflecting exercise performa nce, which should be easy to measure and should take their nutritional state into account, The aim of this study was to investigate the rela tionship between maximum workload (Wmax) and body weight (BW) as well as fat-free mass (FFM) in healthy children performing an incremental m aximum exercise test on a bicycle ergometer, and to develop reference values for Wmax corrected for nutritional state. A random sample of 15 8 children (77 boys and 81 girls), aged 12-18 yrs, underwent an increm ental maximum exercise test on a bicycle ergometer. BW and FFM were al so measured. Correlation analysis showed a significant association (p< 0.001) between BW and Wmax (boys: r=0.82; girls: r=0.73), and between FFM and Wmax (boys: r=0.89; girls: r=0.79). Two-way analysis of varian ce showed a significant effect of gender on variance of Wmax/BW ratio as well as Wmax/FFM ratio. The influence of age was significant for Wm ax/FFM (p=0.003), but not for Wmax/BW. The maximum workload/body weigh t ratio and the maximum workload/fat-free mass ratio are useful parame ters of work capacity in bicycle exercise testing in children. The ref erence values (mean, so, median, and percentiles) for boys and girls a ged 12-18 years can be used to predict workload corrected for body com position in healthy and sick children. (C)ERS Journals Ltd 1997.