Aerobic trainability of prepubertal boys and girls

This study examined the effect of exercise training on peak VO2 of 26 (12 boys and 14 girls) prepubertal children. Exercise training involved 12 weeks of stationary cycling for 30 min, 3 times.week(-1) at 79.3 +/- 1.2% (M +/- SD) peak heart rate. Nineteen maturity matched controls (10 boys and 9 girls) completed all teals excluding the training. When alterations in habitual physical activity and percent body Eat were included as covariates in the analyses, the exercise training did not have a significant effect on peak VO2, fur boys or girls. These data may either indicate a maturity related, blunted training response or that prepubertal children require a more intense exercise stimulus.