Effect of Fitness Level on Physiological, Perceptual, and Affective responses during Treadmill Walking at a Self-Selected Pace

Abstract

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare the physiological, perceptual, and affective responses during treadmill walking at a self-selected pace in individuals of high and low fitness levels. METHODS: Thirty-eight apparently healthy women were assigned to two groups according to their aerobic fitness (High Fit (HF), N = 20, age: 32.1 ± 8.0 yr, body mass: 61.8 ± 8.7 kg, VO2max: 38.3 ± 3.8 ml.kg-1.min-1, and Low Fit (LF), N = 19, age: 31.6 ± 7.1 yr, body mass: 66.0 ± 12.0 kg, VO2max: 29.8 ± 2.0 ml.kg-1.min-1). Each participant performed an incremental treadmill test to determine VO2max and a 20-min treadmill walking bout at a self-selected pace. During the 20-min of treadmill walking at a self-selected pace, the physiological (oxygen uptake, VO2) responses were recorded continuously. Furthermore, the perceptual (Borg-RPE for the overall body, 6-20) and affective (Feeling Scale, Hardy & Rejeski, 1989) responses were determined every 5 min throughout the test. Differences in physiological, perceptual and affective responses between HF and LF were identified by using an independent t test. RESULTS: LF subjects self-selected a slower walking speed compared to HF subjects (1.54 ± 0.17 m.sec-1 and 1.68 ± 0.2 m.sec-1, respectively, P < .05). Furthermore, the VO2 was higher for the HF (21.6 ± 4.4 ml.kg-1.min-1, P < .05) than LF (18.2 ± 2.2 ml.kg-1.min-1) individuals during the 20 min treadmill walk, corresponding to a similar %VO2max (56.1 ± 11.4 and 61.7 ± 10.0 %, respectively). HF and LF subjects also showed similar perceptual (11.5 ± 1.5 vs. 12.2 ± 1.0, respectively) and affective responses (3.6 ± 1.1 vs. 3.1 ± 1.2, respectively) during the 20-min bout of treadmill walking at a self-selected pace. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study demonstrate that physiological, but not perceptual and affective responses of healthy women, are influenced by aerobic fitness during treadmill walking at a self-selected pace.