Oxygen Uptake, Heart Rate and Oxygen Pulse at Maximal Exercise

Kim, Tae Sug; Kim, Ih Geun; Kim, Chi Hui; Kim, Chae Gi; Choe, Jung Yoon; Chang, Sung Gug; Lee, Bong Ryeol; Choi, Sung Chul; Jun, Jae Eun; Park, Wee Hyun; Park, Hi Myung; Kim, Yu Moon; Kim, Jong Suk

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Despite the fact that determinations of cadiorespiratory fitness levels by exercise stress tests are becoming widely used in healthy individuals as well as in patients with cardiopulmonary diseases, the normal standards in this field have not been well established in Korea. The purpose of this study is to provide normal standards or reference values for the VO2 max, HR max and O2 pulse max for normal Korean adults by age and sex, along with the derivation of regression formulae of these parameters.
METHODS
In 1,000 healthy adults (20-66years) consisting of 603men and 397women, symptomlimited maximal exercise was carried out by Bruce protocol, allowing holding on to the hand rail of the treadmill during exercise for the safety purpose. All the subjects were non-athletes and were members of a health center and were more conscious about their health and physical fitness than the ordinary population.
RESULTS
The VO2 max and HR max were decreased with age as expected and, as a whole, the values of the VO2 max and HR max of females were approximately 84% and 90% of those of males, respectively. Estimated yearly reductions in the V max for males and females were 0.45 and 0.32mL/kg/min, respectively and those of the HR max were 0.72 and 0.76/min, respectively. The O2 pulse max of the female was approximately 70% of that of the male, and was slightly related to weight and exercise time. The regression equations of the parameters obtained using exercise time (ET, sec), age (A, year), weight (W, kg) and sex (S, O=male; 1= female) were: HR max=215.3-0.74A-5,04S, O2 pulse max= 5.371+0.216W+0.0107ET-1.505S and VO2 max=40.612+1.950ET-0.206A-0.147W-6.060S,
CONCLUSION
The VO2 max in our study was higher than hitherto reported. This was primarily due to longer exercise time of the subjects on the treadmill, because they were allowed to hold on to the hand rail during exercise. And also, the fact that our subjects, being members of a health center, might have had higher physical fitness levels than general population could have contributed to the high VO2 max. Thus, we feel that our results could be the ideal target or- reference values to be achieved for those patients or individuals who have to do the tests with holding on to the rail of a treadmill for safety purpose.