Estimation of total oxygen uptake in women during exercise by total heart beats and aerobic fitness.

The present study was performed to find a practical method for estimating total O2 uptake (TVO2) of women during exercise based on total heart beats (THB) and aerobic fitness level, and examine the influence of the type of exercise on the estimation. After 60 observations on 20 female subjects tested by the cycle ergometer, the following formula was derived. TVO2 (ml.kg-1) = SR125 X (61.0 X mean HR + 2543) X THB X 10(-4), where mean HR is mean heart rate (beats.min-1) in exercise, and SR125 is the slope of the regression line between accumulated heart beats and accumulated O2 uptake during exercise at 125 beats.min-1 of mean HR. SR125 was significantly correlated not only to VO2max but also each score (X) in any simple endurance tests, such as the step test for 3 min, yielding a formula, SR125 = -0.00115X + 0.3081. Both formulae indicate that the TVO2 of any exercising person can be estimated from THB and mean HR when SR125 was determined by the simple endurance test. The discrepancy between both TVO2 as estimated by our method and measured directly by the Douglas bag method during walking on a treadmill was not significant with that during the cycling on an ergometer. Accordingly, our method may possibly be used for estimating TVO2 in exercise mainly using the leg muscles such as in cycling and walking.