The Metabolic Equivalent for Tinikling

Abstract

Tinikling, or bamboo dance, is a traditional Philippine folk dance that is also popular among many Filipino-American communities. As a popular form of physical activity, Tinikling dance may be used as a moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) intervention tool for at-risk Filipino communities. However, the energy cost of Tinikling is currently unknown. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the energy expenditure of Tinikling dance within experienced adult Filipino dancers, as well as whether the MET value would exceed either the 3.0 or 6.0 MET thresholds for MVPA. METHODS: Twenty-two “low risk” healthy Filipino-American adults from Las Vegas, NV, all of whom self-reported having practiced Tinikling dance within the previous 12 months, where recruited. Test subjects included 15 women (Mean±SD: 32±10 yrs, 24.8±4.5 kg/m^2) and 7 men (38±12 yrs, 27.0±4.9 kg/m^2). During a single 60-min visit, subjects performed 5 mins quiet sitting, 4-min warm-up, 5 mins of dance, 3 mins active recovery, 5 mins of quiet sitting. While testing, subjects wore a telemetry-based portable indirect calorimetry system to assess energy expenditure (EE). Subjects danced to the same track of music that had been looped to allow for 5 mins of continuous dancing. An average of the last two mins of EE data were then converted to activity energy expenditure (AEE, kcals/kg/min), relative oxygen update (VO2, ml/kg/min) and METs for each subject using total mass (body mass + 1.5 kg equipment mass). One-sample t-tests were used to compare the resulting mean MET values for women, men, and all subjects, to 3.0 and 6.0 MET MVPA thresholds (0.05 alpha level. RESULTS: Mean METs were significantly greater than both 3.0 (P<0.0001) and 6.0 METs (P=0.0015). The mean measures of energy expenditure were as follows: METs (Mean±SD; 6.9±1.4, 7.0±1.0, 6.9±1.3), VO2 (24.1±4.9, 24.4±3.5, 24.2±4.4 ml/kg/min), and AEE (0.1083±0.0243, 0.1064±0.0161, 0.1077±0.0216 kcals/kg/min) for the women, men, and all subjects, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The mean MET values for Tinikling dance exceeded both 3.0 and 6.0 MET thresholds for moderate and vigorous intensity thresholds, respectively. These results support the use of Tinikling dance as a culturally-specific means of promoting and accumulating weekly MVPA.