Aerobic Capacity, Activity Levels and Daily Energy Expenditure in Male and Female Adolescents of the

The relative importance of genetic and socio-cultural influences contributing to the success of east Africans in endurance athletics remains unknown in part because the pre-training phenotype of this population remains incompletely assessed. Here cardiopulmonary fitness, physical activity levels, distance travelled to school and daily energy expenditure in 15 habitually active male (13.961.6 years) and 15 habitually active female (13.961.2) adolescents from a rural Nandi primary school are assessed. Aerobic capacity ( _VO2max) was evaluated during two maximal discontinuous incremental exercise tests; physical activity using accelerometry combined with a global positioning system; and energy expenditure using the doubly labelled water method. The _VO2max of the male and female adolescents were 73.965.7 ml. kg21. min21 and 61.566.3 ml. kg21. min21, respectively. Total time spent in sedentary, light, moderate and vigorous physical activities per day was 406663 min (50 % of total monitored time), 244656 min (30%), 75618 min (9%) and 82630 min (10%). Average total daily distance travelled to and from school was 7.563.0 km (0.8–13.4 km). Mean daily energy expenditure, activity-induced energy expenditure and physical activity level was 12.263.4 MJ. day21, 5.463.0 MJ. day21 and 2.260.6. 70.6 % of the variation in _VO2max was explained by sex (partial R 2 = 54.7%) and body mass index (partial R2 = 15.9%). Energ