Cooper test calculator: 12-minute distance to MAS and VO₂max

How the result is computed

Twelve minutes are a fifth of an hour: the average speed in km/h is the distance in metres divided by 200. Over an effort of that length, run at an even pace, it comes close to MAS, and it is the simplest reading of the test. VO₂max comes from the equation Kenneth Cooper published in 1968 in JAMA, after comparing, in US Air Force men, the distance run in 12 minutes with VO₂max measured on a treadmill: (distance − 504.9) ÷ 44.73, in ml/min/kg.

The Daniels and Gilbert model starts from the speed and duration of the run. It estimates the share of VO₂max that can be held for 12 minutes and the oxygen cost of the speed run, then derives a VO₂max and the matching speed. It gives a MAS very close to the average speed but a lower VO₂max than Cooper’s equation: 36.3 against 42.4 ml/min/kg for 2,400 m. Do not mix the two figures: keep the same method from one test to the next.

What the calculator does not know

It knows neither your age, nor your sex, nor the ground. Cooper’s equation was fitted on young active men; for other groups the gap with a laboratory measurement can be large. A start that is too fast, wind or a badly measured track distort the distance, and therefore everything else. The figure is an estimate to follow progress, not a medical assessment.

Further reading

• The Cooper test
• The half-Cooper
• VO₂max calculator
• Training paces from MAS