Fitness tests / Six-minute walk test

Six-minute walk test

How far you can walk in six minutes is a practical measure of endurance and everyday walking capacity. Clinicians use it widely, and it is easy to repeat.

A woman walking on an outdoor track
  • 6 minutes
  • Flat 30 m (100 ft) course
  • Two markers
  • A timer, ideally a helper

Safety first. Check with a healthcare professional before testing if you have symptoms, heart or lung disease, exercise restrictions, or concerns about doing this safely.

Stop immediately if you have chest pain or pressure, severe breathlessness, dizziness or feel faint.

How to do the test

  1. Mark out a flat, straight course, ideally 30 metres (100 feet), with a cone or object at each end. A quiet corridor or track works.
  2. Rest seated for a few minutes before you start.
  3. Start the timer and walk back and forth around the markers, covering as much distance as you can. Walk, do not run.
  4. You may slow down or stop to rest standing if you need to. The clock keeps running.
  5. Count your laps. At six minutes, stop and mark where you are.
  6. Work out the total: laps × course length, plus the final partial lap.

What the test reflects

The six-minute walk draws on your heart, lungs, circulation, muscles and joints together. Because it is self-paced, it mirrors the walking you do in daily life better than a maximal treadmill test.

How to read your result

Performance varies with age, sex, height, weight, health conditions, and even the length and layout of the course. If you add those details, your distance is compared with a widely used reference equation from healthy adults aged 40 to 80. The most useful comparison, though, is with yourself: repeat the test on the same course every few months.

Reference values

Because walking distance depends strongly on height and weight as well as age and sex, the six-minute walk is compared with an equation rather than a simple table. The equations come from 290 healthy adults aged 40 to 80.

Men: 7.57 × height (cm) − 5.02 × age − 1.76 × weight (kg) − 309 m

Women: 2.11 × height (cm) − 2.29 × weight (kg) − 5.78 × age + 667 m

The lower limit of normal, roughly the 5th percentile, is 153 m below the predicted value for men and 139 m below for women. Your percentile is estimated from these limits.

Enter your result

Units
m
Laps × course length, plus the last partial lap.

Optional: add these to compare with a reference value.

Sex
years
cm
kg

Your result is saved only in this browser. Nothing is sent to us.

References
  1. ATS Committee on Proficiency Standards for Clinical Pulmonary Function Laboratories. ATS statement: guidelines for the six-minute walk test. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2002;166(1):111–117.
  2. Enright PL, Sherrill DL. Reference equations for the six-minute walk in healthy adults. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 1998;158(5 Pt 1):1384–1387.