Performance comparison of different regression methods for VO2max estimation

The purpose of this paper is to develop maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂max) models by using different regression methods such as Multilayer Feed-Forward Artificial Neural Networks (MFANN´s), Support Vector Regression (SVR), Generalized Regression Neural Networks (GRNN´s) and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR). The dataset includes data of 439 subjects and the input variables of the dataset are gender, age, body mass index (BMI), percent body fat (BF), respiratory exchange ratio (RER) from treadmill test, self-reported rating of perceived exertion (RPE) from treadmill test, heart rate (HR) and time to exhaustion from treadmill test. The performance of the models is evaluated by calculating their standard error of estimates (SEE) and multiple correlation coefficients (R). The results suggest that MFANN-based VO₂max prediction models perform better than other prediction models.