Nonexercise Estimation of V̇O₂peak Using Seismocardiography in Female Subelite and Male Elite Football Players

A novel method for estimating V̇O 2 peak using seismocardiography (SCG eV̇O 2 peak) at rest was developed some years ago, and this study investigates an updated version using data from a trained population. Forty five subelite female and Sixty seven elite male football players were tested and included in a cross‐sectional accuracy comparison between SCG eV̇O 2 peak and V̇O 2 peak obtained from an incremental cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) performed on a treadmill. In addition, the ability of the method to detect changes over time was assessed by comparison of changes in V̇O 2 peak over 3 months (female and male, n = 60), 6 months (female, n = 17), and 1 year (male, n = 18) for CPET and SCG, respectively. No difference and a fair agreement were found between combined sex cross‐sectional SCG eV̇O 2 peak and CPET V̇O 2 peak (bias ± 95% CI: −1.0 ± 0.9 mL·min −1 ·kg −1 and limits of agreement [95%]: ± 9.1 mL·min −1 ·kg −1 ), with similar agreement between sexes. The standard error of estimation and mean absolute percentage error were 4.8 mL·min −1 ·kg −1 and 7.4%, respectively. V̇O 2 peak was only increased over 6 months for females (CPET: 2.2 ± 1.1 mL·min −1 ·kg −1 , SCG: 1.2 ± 1.1 mL·min −1 ·kg −1 , and p < 0.05) with no difference between methods ( p = 0.170). A correlation between ΔV̇O 2 peak for CPET and SCG was found for 1‐year analyses (male, R 2 = 0.62, and P < 0.05) but no other correlations were significant. The SCG method is accurate in estimating V̇O 2 peak in both subelite and elite football players, with fair agreement and low estimation errors. The SCG method was able to detect an association of 1‐year changes but not for changes over shorter times; however, these results require more investigation due to small sample sizes.