What is the Bronco test?
The Bronco is a continuous shuttle run: five rounds of 20m + 40m + 60m, 1,200m in total, run flat-out for time. It came from rugby and has spread through GAA and other team sports because it needs nothing but cones and a stopwatch, and it's easy to repeat exactly — which is what makes it useful for tracking aerobic fitness across a season. It's covered in full in our complete guide to fitness testing for GAA clubs.
Bronco test benchmarks (adult amateur)
These are the bands the FitScore Pro app scores every Bronco with. They come from the test-specific normative paper — Kelly, Jackson & Wood (2014), Journal of Australian Strength and Conditioning — which reports typical 1.2km shuttle times for college-age amateurs: men 5:22 ± 28s, women 6:06 ± 32s. Tier cut-points sit at the 95th, 80th, 60th and 40th percentiles. They are deliberately amateur-calibrated; professionals run quicker.
| Sex (age 18–35) | Elite | Excellent | Good | Average | Needs Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male | ≤ 4:36 | 4:37–4:58 | 4:59–5:15 | 5:16–5:29 | ≥ 5:30 |
| Female | ≤ 5:13 | 5:14–5:39 | 5:40–5:58 | 5:59–6:14 | ≥ 6:15 |
Minutes:seconds for the full 1,200m; lower is better. Surface, weather, footwear and turning technique all shift a time, so a player against their own previous result is always the more honest comparison.
Why there is no under-18 table
Most "Bronco times by age" tables online are invented. There is no validated, general-population Bronco norm for under-18s — the only youth data that exists is sport-specific academy data, collected on selected players, which does not transfer to a club U15. Publishing a made-up youth table would tell a 14-year-old something false with a straight face.
So this calculator does what the app does: an under-18 is scored against the adult amateur band and the result is clearly flagged scored on adult norms. A "Needs Improvement" for a 13-year-old against that band is not a verdict on the player; it is a statement that the yardstick is an adult one. The fair benchmark for an underage player is their own previous result, retested on the same schedule — and that is the comparison worth recording.
From Bronco time to training
A finishing time is more useful than it looks. Because the Bronco is a continuous ~4–6 minute run, dividing 1,200m by the time gives a workable estimate of maximal aerobic speed (MAS) — the top of a player's aerobic engine expressed as a speed. That number turns a test result into individual interval training speeds. OurMAS calculator does the conversion and lays out the %MAS session speeds coaches actually use.
Making the number mean something
Two habits make a Bronco time useful rather than a one-off curiosity. Retest on the same schedule as the rest of your battery — every 10 to 12 weeks — and score every result against a published band, not a feeling. A raw "4:55" says little; "4:55, Excellent for an adult male" is a number that says something. That scoring, across a whole squad and kept in a record the club owns, is exactly whata purpose-built tool takes off your plate.
Frequently asked questions
What's a good Bronco test time?
For an adult male amateur, 4:36 or faster is Elite, up to 4:58 is Excellent, up to 5:15 is Good and up to 5:29 is Average. For an adult female the same tiers run 5:13, 5:39, 5:58 and 6:14. These are amateur bands from Kelly, Jackson and Wood (2014); professional players are quicker again (Super Rugby men around 5:11 and women around 6:19, and elite inter-county Gaelic footballers around 4:45).
What is the average Bronco time for a 14-year-old?
Honestly: there is no validated, general-population Bronco norm for under-18s. The only youth data that exists is sport-specific academy data, which does not transfer to a club U15. Rather than invent a youth table, this calculator scores an under-18 against the adult amateur band and tells you it has done so, which is exactly what the FitScore Pro app does. The fairest benchmark for a 14-year-old is the same player twelve weeks from now.
How is the Bronco test scored?
The Bronco is scored on total time for the full 1,200m: five continuous rounds of 20m + 40m + 60m shuttles, run flat-out with no rest. There is no points system; the finishing time is the score. Its value comes from repeating it exactly and watching the time move across a season, which is why the same surface, warm-up and turning technique each time matter more than the raw number.
Where do these Bronco benchmarks come from?
From the test-specific normative paper: Kelly, Jackson and Wood (2014), Journal of Australian Strength and Conditioning, which reports typical 1.2km shuttle times for college-age amateurs. Tier cut-points sit at the 95th, 80th, 60th and 40th percentiles. They are the same bands the FitScore Pro app scores with, and the app publishes its full source registry so you can check any test. Surface, weather, footwear and turning technique still shift a time by several seconds, so a player against their own previous result is always the more honest comparison.