Maximal aerobic speed and running time to exhaustion for children 6 to 17 years old

A cross-sectional design was used to study the associations among sex, age, maximal aerobic speed (MAS), and running time to exhaustion at 100% of MAS (T-lim). The subjects were 1,448 schoolchildren (685 males and 763 females) ages 6 to 17 years. The MAS of males increased significantly (p < .001) from 6 (9.0 +/- 0.8 km . h(-1)) to 17 years (14.1 +/- 1.6 km . h(-1)). The MAS of females increased significantly (p < .001) from 6 (8.7 +/- 0.6 km . h(-1)) to 12 years (10.7 +/- 1.2 km . h(-1)), then remained relatively constant at approximately 11 km . h(-1) between 12 and 17 years. T-lim increased significantly from 6 to 13 years for mates and from 6 to 11 years for females, then remained relatively constant around 350 s for both males and females.