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Physiological responses during an incremental exercise test performed on underwater stationary bike

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Abstract

Purpose

Cycling underwater is a low impact physical activity that has became popular workout due to capability to enhance physical fitness. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between pedal cadence with heart rate (HR) and oxygen uptake (VO2) during incremental exercise test in a novel adjustable resistance bike underwater.

Methods

Fifteen participants completed three incremental cycling tests in a random order. Each test began at 50 revolutions per minute (RPM) and increased 3 RPM every minute until volitional exhaustion. The bike has the unique ability to manipulate the frontal surface area (FSA) of the blades providing three different resistance settings for the same RPM (FSA1 = 500 cm2, FSA2 = 580 cm2, and FSA3 = 660 cm2).

Results

The findings indicated a strong linear relationship between RPM vs. %VO2peak and RPM vs. %HRpeak in all FSA conditions (r = 0.98–0.99). In addition, the results showed a significant lower peak cadence for the FSA3 setting compared to the other conditions (p < 0.05). However, there were no differences in maximal physiological responses between all frontal area conditions.

Conclusions

Therefore, the developed exercise prescription on the novel stationary bike needs to consider the FSA of the blades due to differences found in the predictive values of VO2 and HR for the same pedal cadence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Human Performance Laboratory, Sports and Health Sciences Centre (CEFID), Santa Catarina State University, Rua Pascoal Simone, Coqueiros, 358, Florianópolis, Brazil

    Vitor Pereira Costa

  2. Physical Effort Laboratory, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil

    Vitor Pereira Costa & Ricardo Dantas de Lucas

  3. Motor Evaluation Laboratory, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil

    Jonas Almeida Neves Martins & Jorge Roberto Perrout de Lima

Authors
  1. Vitor Pereira Costa
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  2. Jonas Almeida Neves Martins
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  3. Ricardo Dantas de Lucas
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  4. Jorge Roberto Perrout de Lima
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vitor Pereira Costa.

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Conflict of interest

All the authors declare that there is no conflict of interests.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the institutional research ethics committee at Federal University of Juiz de Fora (HU CAS/UFJF ethics committee number 0031/2009) and was in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Costa, V.P., Martins, J.A.N., de Lucas, R.D. et al. Physiological responses during an incremental exercise test performed on underwater stationary bike. Sport Sci Health 13, 87–92 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-016-0329-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-016-0329-2

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