Cardiorespiratory strain of middle-aged men in mass events of long-distance cycling, rowing, jogging, and skiing.

The heart rate of 11 39- to 53-year-old regularly exercising but nonathletic men was recorded during mass events of 132-km cycling, 35-km rowing, 33-km running, and 90-km cross-country skiing during 1 year. These measurements were related to the cardiorespiratory response in respective maximal exercise tests to determine and compare the strain of the four events. The mean event time of the subjects was 4 h 58 (+/- 34) min for cycling, 4 h 20 (+/- 35) min for rowing, 3 h 30 (+/- 29) min for running, and 8 h 29 (+/- 49) min for skiing. The respective mean heart rates were 153 (+/- 10), 137 (+/- 15), 159 (+/- 8), and 145 (+/- 5) bts/min, which represented 79.3 (+/- 6), 72.9 (+/- 13), 85.7 (+/- 4), and 72.8 (+/- 7) %VO2 max as determined from the event-specific HR/VO2 regression line. The proportion of event heart rates above the level representing the 90% event-specific maximal heart rate was 31.2% (+/- 19%) in cycling, 17.9% (+/- 26%) for rowing, 59.7% (+/- 24%) for running, and 21.6% (+/- 23%) for skiing. A statistical comparison of the mean event heart rates indicated that heart rate was lower in rowing than in jogging (P less than 0.01) and in cycling (P less than 0.05) and also lower in skiing (P less than 0.01) than in jogging. The present results showed that the cardiorespiratory strain of middle-aged nonathletic men during long-distance mass events of cycling, jogging, and skiing is high and relatively comparable to that of well-conditioned athletes.