It is also a good measurement of fitness and a person's ability to recover after a strenuous exercise by checking the recovery rate.
[1][2][3] The test subject repeatedly steps onto and off of a platform every two seconds.
Exhaustion is the point at which the subject cannot maintain the stepping rate for 15 seconds.
The subject immediately sits down on completion of the test, and the heartbeats are counted for 1 to 1.5, 2 to 2.5, and 3 to 3.5 minutes.
[5] Another modified version, the Sharkey step test, was developed in the 1970s for use by the United States Forest Service at the University of Montana in Missoula.