Beep test: levels, speeds, scoring chart, MAS and training

What the test measures

The beep test measures your maximal aerobic speed, or MAS: the running speed at which your body uses as much oxygen as it can. It is the single number that sums up a runner’s endurance, and the one coaches use to set every training pace.

It was published in 1982 by Luc Léger and Jean Lambert, two physiologists at the University of Montreal, and revised in 1988 with one-minute levels. Its success rests on three things: it fits in a 20 m gym, it tests thirty people at once, and it only needs an audio player. Forty years on, it is the endurance test of most police and fire services in the English-speaking world, of the French civil-service exams, and the reference test of school sport.

How it runs

Two lines on the floor, 20 metres apart. On the beep you run from one line to the other. Your foot must be on or behind the line when the next beep sounds; then you turn and go back. The beeps get closer level after level: the first level is run at 8 km/h, the second at 9 km/h, then speed increases by 0.5 km/h per level, and each level lasts about a minute.

The test ends when you can no longer reach the line on the beep. The usual rule tolerates one late arrival, provided you catch up on the next shuttle, and stops the test on the second consecutive miss. The score is the last completed level, sometimes with the number of shuttles run in the next one, for instance “8.5” or “8 + 5”.

Three things make the difference on the day:

• Start slowly. Level 1 is run at 8 km/h, a jogging pace. Those who get ahead of the beep spend at level 3 the energy they will need at level 9.
• Touch the line, do not overrun it. Every metre past the line is paid twice, out and back. Prepare the turn two strides early, braking, plant foot behind the line.
• Breathe to the rhythm. The beep becomes a metronome; experienced runners time their exhale with the turn.

The chart: two versions, one real difference

There are two tables of the 20 m shuttle run, and they are confused all the time because the confusion is silent.

The version Léger published in 1988 starts at 8.5 km/h, with levels of exactly one minute, and counts 237 shuttles. The so-called Eurofit version, whose table the 20 m PACER of the FitnessGram programme uses, starts at 8.0 km/h and then jumps straight to 9.0 km/h at level 2, with levels of 60 to 66 seconds, for 247 shuttles. From level 2 onwards the two versions run at the same speeds; the shuttle counts per level differ slightly because the level durations do.

This site reproduces the 8.0 km/h version, because it is the one used by French, British and Irish entry tests.

Another thing simplified charts get wrong: the number of shuttles per level is not a function of duration. At level 8, 12 km/h, a shuttle takes exactly 6 seconds, so 60 seconds hold ten. The official chart counts eleven. The table is empirical, levels last 60 to 66 seconds, and the table is what counts, not the arithmetic. The full chart below reproduces it shuttle by shuttle.

Reading your score

Your MAS is the speed of the last level you completed. Level 6 done, MAS 11 km/h. Level 8, 12 km/h. Level 12, 14 km/h. A level you started does not count, and an average makes no sense: that is the scoring convention every examiner applies.

Some working benchmarks for adults, as coaches use them, with no published norm behind them:

• Levels 5 to 7 (10.5 to 11.5 km/h): healthy but untrained adult.
• Levels 8 to 10 (12 to 13 km/h): regular exerciser.
• Levels 11 to 13 (13.5 to 14.5 km/h): trained athlete, regional-level team-sport player.
• Levels 14 to 17 (15 to 16.5 km/h): experienced runner, top amateur footballer.
• Beyond level 18 (17 km/h and up): endurance athlete.

VO₂max is estimated with the equation Léger and colleagues published with the test in 1988. It starts from the last level announced, the one during which you stop, not the last one completed, and it takes age into account, capped at 18. For an adult, stopping during level 8 gives about 44.6 ml/min/kg, and during level 12 about 56.6. For a 12-year-old the same level 8 gives 53.0, because a child uses more oxygen than an adult at the same speed. It is an estimate, not a laboratory measurement.

Who requires it

In England and Wales the police use a 15 m variant, the Job-Related Fitness Test, while fire and rescue services use the classic 20 m bleep test. Australian police and defence forces, Canadian police services and the French police, gendarmerie and fire service all set a minimum level on this test, usually different by sex and age, and those standards change with each regulation. The entry-test pages on this site collect them, with the official source and the date checked.

Training for it

The beep test is prepared in four to eight weeks with two sessions a week. The logic is simple: MAS is trained at MAS.

1. Test yourself first. One full test, in exam conditions, gives your starting level and the MAS to calibrate sessions on. Without that number you are training blind.
2. Short intervals at 100-105 % of MAS. The 30-30 is the key session: 30 seconds at MAS, 30 seconds jogging, ten to fifteen repetitions. For a MAS of 12 km/h, 30 seconds is 100 m. Once a week.
3. Shuttles in situation. Every other session, run your intervals out and back over 20 m rather than in a straight line: the turn is a skill, and it costs energy until it is automatic.
4. One longer easy run at 70 % of MAS for the aerobic base.
5. Retest every three weeks. The level gained is the only measure of progress that counts.

On the day: a fifteen-minute warm-up ending with two or three strides, indoor shoes if the test is in a gym, and above all no getting ahead of the beep for the first five levels.

Mistakes that cost a level

• Training in straight lines and discovering the turn on test day.
• Overrunning the line by a metre on every shuttle: 72 shuttles later, going into level 9, that is over 70 metres run for nothing.
• Setting off above the pace because the beep sounds slow.
• Testing on an empty stomach, after a heavy meal, or without a warm-up.
• Testing on “roughly” 20 m. A 19 m course gives you one level more, and the false hope that comes with it.