Abstract des Autors

The purpose of this study was to determine if a four months walking program perceived to be of comfortable intensity by older sedentary participants had an effect on cardiovascular and work out-put indices. Forty-seven volunteers aged 56-83, considered healthy by medical examination, were assigned to either an exercise (n. 31) or control (n. 16) group. The Borg scale was used to teach the experimental group to qualify subjective feeling of work intensity. Once they could reproduce an exercise intensity ranked as comfortable, the subjects were asked to walk at that speed for 20-30 minutes, four times per week. Their measured heart rate at speed ranked as comfortable was between 50 to 65% of the group's heart rate reserve. At post-testing the experimental group demonstrated that the gains in estimated VO2max were significant (p<0.05) for both exercising males (54.24%) and females (27.98%) and there was significant reduction (p<0.05) in the time required to walk the Rockport Fitness Walking Test (12.62%). It was concluded that a walking program conducted at an intensity perceived subjectively as comfortable is appriopriate to improve cardiorespiratory fitness in older adults. Verf.-Referat