ORIGINAL ARTICLES  EXCERCISE PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOMECHANICS 

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2014 December;54(6):708-14

Copyright © 2014 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Influence of the aerobic fitness on time spent at high percentage of maximal oxygen uptake during a high-intensity intermittent running

Panissa V. L. G., Julio U. F., Pinto-E-Silva C. M., Andreato L. V., Schwartz J., Franchini E. ✉

Department of Sport, School of Physical Education and Sport, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

This study aimed to evaluate absolute and relative (%V.O2max) oxygen uptake (total, during effort and pause), and time spent above 90% of V.O2max during high-intensity intermittent running in subjects with different training status. Fourteen males were evaluated and divided (moderate and high aerobic power) according to their V.O2max obtained in an incremental treadmill test to volitional exhaustion. They were then submitted to high-intensity intermittent aerobic exercise (1 min:1 min at maximum velocity attained during the treadmill test, totalling 4 km). A Student’s t test for independent data was conducted to identify differences between groups. The moderate aerobic power group spent more time above 90% V.O2max compared to the high aerobic power group (30.2 ±9.1%; 7.3±6%, respectively, P=0.001). Moreover, the moderate aerobic power group presented lower V.O2total (P=0.011), V.O2effort (P=0.007), higher V.O2total (%V.O2), V.O2effort (P<0.001), V.O2pause (V.O2max%) (P=0.006) compared with the high aerobic power group. There was no difference in V.O2pause between groups (P=0.091), the difference between V.O2 effort and pause was greater for the high aerobic power group compared with the moderate group (4.4±2.1; 7.8±2 mL.kg-1.min-1; P=0.009) and the difference between V.O2 effort and pause (%V.O2max) was not different between groups. To conclude, these results demonstrated that individuals with better aerobic fitness spent less time above 90% of the V.O2max and that this response can be due to better capacity to recover during the pause.