PALPATED vs ELECTRONICALLY MONITORED HEART RATES IN PREDICTING VO2max WITH SUBMAXIMAL EXERCISE TESTS 275

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare self palpated exercise pulse rates to simultaneously electronically monitored heart rates and their subsequent use in predicting aerobic capacity from two sub-maximal exercise tests. Both the palpated (PHR) and electronically monitored (EHR) exercise heart rates were used to estimate self-administered (SA) and tester-administered (TA) aerobic capacity, respectively, from the 1-mile track walk (TW) and 1-mile track jog (TJ) tests. Eighty-eight males and 86 females ranging in age between 18-40 years randomly performed the TW and TJ tests. All subjects were instructed on heart rate palpation and practiced resting heart rate palpations. Upon completing the 1-mile distance, time to completion and PHR were recorded by the subject while an administrator simultaneously recorded time to completion and EHR. Time to completion recorded by subjects and administrator were not significantly different for either the 1-mile walk or jog. PHR was on the average 13 bpm less than EHR following the 1-mile walk and 17 bpm less following the 1-mile jog (P<0.0001). Subsequent prediction of aerobic capacity resulted in SA predictions (50.0±5.9, 48.3±7.3 ml·kg-1·min-1) significantly overestimating(p<0.05) TA predictions (48.2± 5.9, 44.9±6.0 ml·kg-1·min-1) of aerobic capacity using the TW and TJ equations respectively. Results of this study suggest that prior to administering sub-maximal exercise tests, users must be competent in palpating exercise heart rate. In addition, incorrect palpation of exercise heart rate results in erroneous predictions of aerobic capacity.