The origin of the beep test

Fun one: the 20 m shuttle (beep test) was created in the 1980s at Université de Montréal to estimate VO2max without a lab. I drop it in weeks 4 and 10 of a 12-week endurance block to fuel buy-in and track resilience — where do you slot it in your plan?

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I run it the morning after an easy day and cap it at “first miss + one shuttle” — keeps buy-in high and avoids nuking the rest of the week… Do you standardize surface or let weather be a variable?

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I add a 6‑min familiarization in week 2 before full 20 m runs. Tried the 15 m indoor variant? Multi-stage fitness test - Wikipedia.

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I’ve found that doing an introductory session focused on pacing can really help. It sets a baseline and makes the athletes more confident for the real test later. Curious if you prefer to use any specific warm-up exercises to prep for it?

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