Relationships among heart rate, lactate concentration, and perceived effort for different types of rhythmic exercise in women.

OBJECTIVE

Exercise training intensity for aerobic conditioning is typically established by heart rate (HR), oxygen uptake, or rating of perceived exertion (RPE). Recent research, however, suggests that the optimal training intensity may be more appropriately established from measurements of blood lactate concentration ([La]). This study examined the relationships among three of these training intensity variables--HR, RPE, and [La]--for six modes of rhythmic exercise.

DESIGN

Ten healthy women subjects underwent a 4-week habituation period to become familiar with the RPE scale and exercise on a treadmill, cycle ergometer, rowing ergometer, Airdyne, stairstepper, and cross-country skiing simulator. Following habituation, each subject underwent graded discontinuation exercise testing on each mode. HR was measured during the last minute of each 4-minute stage. Immediately after each stage, RPE was requested and blood was collected for analysis of [La]. Data were analyzed with repeated measures ANOVA.

RESULTS

For given RPE values, the treadmill induced higher (p < .05) HR values compared with the cycle and rowing ergometers, and the cycle ergometer induced lower (p < .05) HR values compared with the treadmill, Airdyne, stairstepper, and cross-country skiing simulator. The relationships of [La] with RPE were similar among modes except for the cross-country skiing simulator, which induced a lower (p < .05) [La] for a given RPE.

CONCLUSIONS

Since the relationships of HR and [La] with RPE are not the same for all forms of rhythmic exercise that use a large muscle mass, we conclude that mode specificity should be considered when prescribing aerobic exercise.