Energy expenditure, recovery oxygen consumption, and substrate oxidation during and after body weight resistance exercise with slow movement compared to treadmill walking.

Abstract

The benefit of body weight resistance exercise with slow movement (BWRE-slow) for muscle function is well-documented, but not for energy metabolism. We aimed to examine physiological responses [e.g.,energy expenditure (EE), respiratory exchange ratio (RER), and blood lactate (La)] during and after BWRE-slow compared to EE-matched treadmill walking (TW). Eight healthy young men (23.4 ± 1.8 years old, 171.2 ± 6.2cm, 63.0 ± 4.8kg) performed squat, push-up, lunge, heel-raise, hip-lift, and crunch exercises with BWRE-slow modality. Both the concentric and eccentric phases were set to 3s. A total of three sets (10 repetitions) with 30s rest between sets were performed for each exercise (26.5min). On another day, subjects walked on a treadmill for 26.5min during which EE during exercise was matched to that of BWRE-slow with the researcher controlling the treadmill speed manually. The time course changes of EE and RER were measured. The EE during exercise for BWRE-slow (92.6 ± 16.0kcal for 26.5min) was not significantly different from the EE during exercise for TW (95.5 ± 14.1kcal, p = 0.36). BWRE-slow elicited greater recovery EE (40.55 ± 3.88kcal for 30min) than TW (37.61 ± 3.19kcal, p = 0.029). RER was significantly higher in BWRE-slow during and 0-5min after exercise, but became significantly lower during 25-30min after exercise, suggesting greater lipid oxidation was induced about 30min after exercise in BWRE-slow compared to TW. We also indicated that BWRE-slow has 3.1 metabolic equivalents in average, which is categorized as moderate-intensity physical activity.