ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 1998 June;38(2):132-7

Copyright © 1998 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

The Bruce treadmill protocol: does walking or running during the fourth stage alter oxygen consumption values?

Ward T. E. ¹, Hart C. L. ², McKeown B. C. ², Kras J. ³

¹ Department of Health and Physical Education, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, Texas, USA; ² Department of Health Exercise and Sport Studies, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, USA; ³ Department of Health, Physical Education and Dance, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

Objective. To inves­ti­gate ­heart ­rate (HR) and rel­a­tive oxy­gen con­sump­tion (V.O2) meas­ures dur­ing two ­modes (walk­ing or run­ning ­stage ­four) of the Bruce tread­mill pro­to­col.
Participants. Male vol­un­teers (n=27), rang­ing in age ­from 25 to 56 ­years (M=39.1±10.7 yrs).
Experimental ­design. S’s per­formed to voli­tion­al ­fatigue on the two ran­dom­ly ­assigned tread­mill ­tests.
Measures. HR and V.O2 ­were tak­en ­each min­ute and at ­point of exhaus­tion.
Results. Dependent “t”-­tests ­revealed a sig­nif­i­cant (p≤0.05) dif­fer­ence ­between the pro­to­cols at 11 min­utes (run­ning= 46.7±3.9 > walking=44.6±3.7 ml[kg.min-1]) and at 12 minutes (running=49.3±4.1 > walk­ing=47.6±3.5 ml[kg.min-1]) on the V.O2 val­ues. A sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­enc­es was not­ed on HR at 11 min­utes (run­ning=158.1±13.5 > walk­ing=156.0±13.0 bpm) and at 12 min­utes (run­ning=160.4±11.0 > walk­ing=157.8±11.4 bpm) ­between the pro­to­cols. The two-way ANO­VA tech­nique ­revealed no sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­enc­es or inter­ac­tions on V.O2 or HR ­between young­er (<45 yrs) and old­er (≥45 yrs) sub­jects dur­ing ­either pro­to­col. A one-way ANCO­VA indi­cat­ed no sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­enc­es ­between tall­er and short­er sub­jects on V.O2 dur­ing the ­fourth ­stage of the Bruce pro­to­col. The cor­re­la­tions, ­between the two pro­to­cols, for HR ­were ­strong but ­were weak­er and incon­sis­tent for V.O2. The repeat­ed meas­ures ANO­VA indi­cat­ed sig­nif­i­cant with­in sub­ject var­i­abil­ity ­between ­test admin­is­tra­tions.
Conclusions. When test­ing endu­rance ­trained ­males, modal­ity, age and ­height are not fac­tors in dif­fer­enc­es of V.O2 val­ues dur­ing the 4th ­stage of the Bruce tread­mill ­test but learn­ing ­effect ­could be.