Modelling the Additivity of Perceived Exertion in Symmetric, Mid-Sagittal Lifting

Abstract

Psychophysical approaches to quantifying perceived effort have been used to evaluate the physical demand of many industrial work activities. An experiment was conducted to examine the relationship between ratings of whole-body perceived exertion and differentiated, regional ratings of exertion. The Borg, CR-10 scale was used by 16 subjects performing a simulated repetitive lifting task. Ratings of perceived exertion were obtained for the arms, legs, torso, and central (cardiorespiratory) effort sensations as well as a rating of overall, whole-body exertion. A multiple linear regression analysis was used to predict the whole-body rating of exertion from the differentiated ratings in lifting tasks using both a squat and stoop posture. In the stoop posture condition the coefficient of determination between whole-body perceived exertion and the model including arm, torso, and central ratings was R2=0.81. In the squat posture condition, the final regression model predicting whole-body exertion contained only the rating from the legs (R2 = 0.62). Differentiated ratings explained the majority of the variance in whole-body perceived exertion for squat and stoop lifting tasks.