Differences in cardiorespiratory responses during and after arm crank and cycle exercise.

The differences in cardiorespiratory responses were examined during and after intermittent progressive maximal arm-crank and cycle exercise. Arm-crank exercise was performed in a standing position using no torso restraints to maximize the amount of active skeletal muscle mass. Recovery was followed for 16 min. In the tests a variety of ventilatory gas exchange variables, heart rate, the blood pressure, and the arm venous blood lactate concentration were measured in 21 untrained healthy men aged 24-45 years. At equal submaximal external workloads for arm cranking and cycling (50 and 100 W) the respiratory frequency, tidal volume, pulmonary ventilation, oxygen uptake, carbon dioxide output, the respiratory exchange ratio, heart rate, the arm venous blood lactate concentration, and the ventilatory equivalent for oxygen were higher (P less than 0.001) during arm cranking than cycling. The maximal workload for arm cranking was 44% lower than that for cycling (155 +/- 37 vs 277 +/- 39 W, P less than 0.001) associated with significantly (P less than 0.001) lower maximal tidal volume (-20%), oxygen uptake (-22%), carbon dioxide output (-28%), systolic blood pressure (-17%) and oxygen pulse (-22%) but a higher ventilatory equivalent for carbon dioxide (+22%) and arm venous blood lactate concentration (+37%). However, these responses after arm-crank and cycle exercises behaved almost similarly during recovery. The high cardiorespiratory stress induced by arm work should be taken into account when the work stress and work-rest regimens in actual manual tasks are assessed, and when arm work is used for clinical testing, and in physiotherapy particularly for patients with heart or pulmonary diseases.