VAMEVAL test: protocol, stage table, MAS and training

What the test measures

The VAMEVAL measures maximal aerobic speed, or MAS, just like the beep test. The difference is in the method: the VAMEVAL is run continuously, on a track, with no stopping and no turning. It is the standard test of athletics and team-sport coaches in France, found in clubs, national training centres and sport-science degrees, and it is spreading wherever coaches want a MAS that transfers directly to running paces.

It was developed by Georges Cazorla with Luc Léger in the early 1990s to address a limitation of the shuttle test: the turn every 20 m penalises heavier or less agile runners, and the MAS it gives underestimates the speed those same runners hold on a track. The VAMEVAL removes the turn and keeps the one-minute stage principle.

How it runs

Cones placed every 20 metres along a track, or a closed loop whose perimeter is a multiple of 20 m. A beep sounds at regular intervals: on every beep the runner must be level with a cone. The beeps get closer from one stage to the next. Speed starts at 8 km/h and rises by 0.5 km/h every minute.

The test ends when the runner can no longer be at the cone on the beep. The usual tolerance is one cone behind, caught up or not within the minute; two consecutive misses end the test. MAS is the speed of the last completed stage.

Three cues for the runner:

• Never get ahead. The classic VAMEVAL mistake is to run in front of the beep because 8 km/h feels slow. Every metre of lead is wasted energy, and you pay for it at stage 12.
• Run on the inside line, as close to the kerb as possible: that is where the cones were measured.
• A steady stride. The VAMEVAL rewards regularity, not surges. You do not catch a cone by sprinting; you catch it by easing back onto the rhythm.

The table

The table is simple because it is linear: every stage lasts one minute and is 0.5 km/h faster than the previous one. What the arithmetic does not say, and what the Cadlo app reproduces, is that a stage change lands on a cone, not in the middle of an interval. A stage therefore lasts 57 to 64 seconds depending on the whole number of cones it contains. The speed is exact, not the minute, and the speed is what gives the MAS.

The full table below gives, for each stage, the speed, the number of cones passed, the real duration and the cumulative distance. The published protocol sets no final stage; we stop it at 20 km/h, beyond what a top endurance athlete reaches on this test.

Reading your score

MAS is the speed of the last stage you ran in full. Stage 5 done, 10 km/h. Stage 9, 12 km/h. Stage 13, 14 km/h. Stage 17, 16 km/h. Some coaches credit a half stage, 0.25 km/h, to a runner who held more than thirty seconds of the next stage; that is a custom, not a rule of the protocol.

Working benchmarks for adults, in VAMEVAL speed, as coaches use them and with no published norm behind them:

• 10 to 11.5 km/h: healthy, lightly trained adult.
• 12 to 13.5 km/h: regular runner, 10 km in about 50 minutes.
• 14 to 15.5 km/h: good level, regional team-sport player, 10 km between 43 and 48 minutes.
• 16 to 17.5 km/h: experienced runner, top amateur footballer or rugby player.
• 18 km/h and up: endurance athlete.

For the same runner, VAMEVAL MAS is usually 0.5 to 1 km/h above beep test MAS, because the shuttle turn costs. The two figures are not directly comparable: a training plan is built on one or the other, never on a mix.

What the measured MAS is for

It is the number that calibrates training. Every pace is expressed as a percentage of MAS: easy runs at 65-70 %, threshold at 85 %, 10 km pace at 90 %, short intervals at 100-105 %. For a MAS of 14 km/h, a 30-30 session is run at 14.7 km/h, that is 122 m in 30 seconds. The site’s pace calculator does the conversion for every percentage.

VO₂max is estimated from it: about 43.6 ml/min/kg for 14 km/h with the Daniels and Gilbert model, the one this site uses for tests that return a MAS. The 20 m shuttle run (Léger’s 1988 equation), the Yo-Yo tests and the 30-15 IFT have their own equations.

Training for it

The VAMEVAL is prepared like the shuttle test, without the turning work:

1. A baseline test, to know your MAS and calibrate sessions.
2. One short-interval session a week at 100-105 % of MAS: 30-30s, or 200 m at MAS with 200 m jog recovery, ten to fifteen times.
3. One threshold session at 85 %: two or three times eight minutes.
4. One long easy run at 70 % for the base.
5. A new test every four to six weeks, in the same conditions: same track, same time of day, same weather if possible.

On test day: a fifteen-minute warm-up, two or three strides, and above all no lead on the beep for the first six stages.

Mistakes that cost a stage

• Cones measured by pacing, or placed on an outer line while you run on the inside.
• Getting ahead of the beep and “managing”: you do not manage a maximal test, you follow it.
• A headwind on half the track without accounting for it when reading the result.
• Comparing a VAMEVAL MAS with a beep test MAS as if they were the same figure.
• Testing after a session, or at the end of a heavy week.