Vo2peak assessment in elite soccer players: Breathing gas analysis vs yyir2 vs smartwatch

Assessing VO2peak is important to determine soccer players endurance capacity. Yet its assessment requires sophisticated equipment (i.e. breathing gas analysers). Such tests are highly reliable and valid.

To ease assessment of VO2peak in practice, many different tests such as the YoYo Intermittent Recovery Test (sometimes known as „Beep Test“) have been developed. These tests are less reliable and valid compared to breathing gas analysis, yet often more practical.

Smartwatches also display a VO2peak if players where the watch during outdoor runs (i.e. during warm up). But how valid are these measurements? A study compared breathing gas analysis, YYIR2 measurements and Smartwatch derived VO2peak values in elite soccer players.

Mean Absolute Percentage Error: 1.06% (VO2peak ~ 56.6 ml/min/kg).

Full Text: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38841641/