Aerobic fitness is the body’s ability to perform exercise for sustained periods – such as the length of a rugby game. These tests give a general indication of a player’s overall fitness. The figures the Boks are expected to achieve here require very good levels of aerobic fitness, but are not as high as would be expected in sports where running is more of a specialised skill, such as track athletics.
Bleep test
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The bleep test is also known as the multistage fitness test, shuttle run test or beep test. It is a strenuous test that involves continuous running between two lines. These are placed 20m apart and the players run in time to recorded ‘bleeps’.
The time between the bleeps decreases with each minute (also called the ‘level’).
There are several versions of the test, but one commonly used demands an initial running velocity of 8.5 km/hr, which increases by 0.5 km/hr each minute. The player’s score is the level and number of shuttles they could reach before they could no longer keep up with the ‘bleeps’.
3km run
The 3km run test checks the ability to maintain a moderately high level of effort for sustained periods: 3km represents the total distance covered during a game of top level rugby. Quite simply, player is timed to see how long it takes him to run 3km in tackies on a track.
The required times (from 12 minutes 45 seconds for a prop to 11 minutes 5 seconds for a back) are quite hard going, but should be within the capabilities of a fit young amateur sportsman.
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