An increasing number of people have been looking for water exercises with the purpose of improving overall physical fitness. However, only a limited number of tests assess aerobic fitness, as well as evaluate the performance of practitioners of different age groups in water. The main goals of the present study is to introduce a running test for shallow water to evaluate women of different age groups according to the maximal distance covered during 12 minutes, and to investigate the test-retest reliability of this procedure. Our sample consisted of 135 women between 21 and 84 years of age, who were already adapted to the water. Seventeen women were randomly selected for the test-retest reliability study, and were retested within one week. We observed a high Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) for the test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.91), suggesting a high degree of consistence between measurements. We also observed an inverse and significant relationship between age and distance covered during the test (r = -0.69). The distance covered during the test was also significantly correlated with the heart rate at the end of the test (FC12). This association was not influenced by age, according to the multiple regression and partial correlation analyses conducted (r = 0.35). We ordered the results for the distance covered during the test for each age group in quintiles, which are proposed as norms for the evaluation of the performance. Although the test results were not compared with data obtained from a gold-standard measure of cardiorespiratory fitness (i.e. direct maximal oxygen uptake assessment), they are consistent with literature reports on the topic. This suggests that the proposed test has a good content validity. This manuscript provides evidence that the 12-min-run test in shallow water is reliable. It may also serve as a reference for future studies on criterion validity and concurrent validity. Future studies on the sensitivity of the test in detecting training adaptations are also granted.
Aerobic exercise; Physical fitness; Fitness assessment
