Abstract Aim: to correlate cardiopulmonary capacity widely used variables with athletic performance in 4 km cross country race, in elite female military pentathlon athletes. Methods: Five military pentathlon athletes from Brazilian team with 27.5 [25.0; 29.3] years old underwent an incremental ramp treadmill test to determine VO2max, vVO2max (velocity of initial VO2 plateau), maximum velocity, and these same variables in anaerobic threshold. Furthermore, the performance obtained on the cross-country race of the last trial before the world military games was recorded. Spearman’s correlations were used to investigate the association between cardiopulmonary variables and athletic performance (p < 0.05). Results: The athletes exhibited a median total body weight of 64.3 [60.9; 66.6] kg and height of 1.75 [1.66; 1.76] cm. Race performance was positively correlated with vVO2max (r = 0.98, very strong correlation) and maximum velocity reached (r = 0.95, very strong correlation). The remaining cardiopulmonary variables did not show similar behavior, with r varying between -0.26 and 0.44. Conclusion: Maximum velocity and vVO2max indicators are directly related to athletic performance in the 4 km cross country race of elite female military pentathlon athletes. Thus, the technical team must pay particular attention to athletic performance in these cardiopulmonary variables in both the selection of new athletes and the identification of the effectiveness of applied training strategies.

RESUMO: Com a recente ampliação do público feminino nas forças armadas, cresce a necessidade de estudos sobre a seleção e o treinamento das atletas militares brasileiras. O objetivo do estudo foi determinar as características antropométricas das atletas de Pentatlo Militar da equipe do Exército, e identificar quais variáveis estão presentes nas atletas de melhor desempenho na modalidade. Foram coletados os dados antropométricos e de desempenho atlético (seletiva para os 6º Jogos Mundiais Militares 2015) de cinco atletas de Pentatlo Militar do Exército e foram realizadas análises de grupamentos (Cluster). Foi observada a existência de dois grupos quanto à composição corporal: o formado pelas atletas com os maiores valores de massa livre de gordura e circunferência muscular do braço, bem como menores valores de soma de dobras cutâneas e percentual de gordura, pertenciam ao grupo de melhores atletas quanto a rendimento nas provas. Esse comportamento não foi observado para dimensões corporais.

ABSTRACT The recent increase of the women working for the military forces augments the need for studies that aim to optimize the selection and training of Brazilian athletes. The aim of the present study was to determine the anthropometric characteristics of female Military Pentathlon Army team, and identify which variables present the best values within the best performance athletes group. We collected anthropometric and performance data (selective for the 6th Military World Games) from five athletes of female Military Pentathlon Army team and data were analized by cluster analysis. It has been detected two groups in terms of body composition: one composed by the athletes with the highest fat free mass values and arm muscle circumference, as well as smaller sum of skinfold values and fat percentage which also composed the group of top athletic performance athletes. This fact was not observed for body size variables.