20 m shuttle run
Beep test setup: 20 m course and cone layout
Enter the number of runners, the lane width you want to give each one and, if you know it, the width available in your hall or field. The calculator gives the number of lanes, the number of waves, the number of cones, the length of the two lines to mark, the floor area needed and the diagonal that lets you check the rectangle is square. The distance between the two lines stays 20 m.
Lane width and run-off are organisation choices, not test rules: the starting values are examples, to adapt to your hall. Only the 20 m between the lines is part of the protocol.
Your layout
With this space, plan 2 waves.
The plan
Top view, to scale. Dots are cones, the two solid strokes are the 20 m lines, grey bands are the run-off.
Where to put the cones
On each line, place a cone every 1.5 m, starting from one edge. Do the same on the opposite line, measuring from the same side.
How the layout is computed
The only figure set by the protocol is the distance between the two lines: in 1988 Léger and colleagues describe runs back and forth on a 20 m course, with the runner touching the line on the sound signal. Everything else is geometry. The number of lanes is the width available divided by the lane width, rounded down. If you have more runners than lanes, they run in several waves. Each lane is bounded by two cones on each line, and neighbouring lanes share a cone, so you need one more cone than lanes on each of the two lines.
The floor area adds to the 20 m the run-off you leave behind each line for the turn. The diagonal checks that the two lines are parallel and square to the course: measure it from one corner of the rectangle formed by the two lines to the opposite corner, then the other diagonal. If both measurements are equal and match the figure shown, the rectangle is square. It is Pythagoras: the square root of 20² plus the line length squared.
Equipment
A flat, non-slip surface at least 20 m long, cones, a measuring tape, something to mark the lines (tape or chalk), the test recording and a score sheet. That is the list Topend Sports gives for the PACER. Measure the 20 m with the tape, never by pacing it out: a one-metre error changes the result of the whole group. The PACER also exists in a 15 m version, with its own recording and its own chart: its results cannot be read on the 20 m chart.