Effect of step height on cardiorespiratory responses during aerobic step test in young Indian women

Abstract

Background: Step aerobics is practiced in health centres, fitness training gyms, and academic institutions in India. This exercise module is gaining popularity day by day. But, these kind of aerobic exercise tests are less investigated for Indian women population. Objective: A widely practiced aerobic step test was applied to a group of young female to explore the effect of step height on physiological responses and suggest the best height of stepping. Method: Eight physically fit and active female university students with mean age 19.7 (±2.3) yrs, height 156.2 (±6.5) cm, weight 51.2 (±7.9) kg, and VO2max 35.7 (±4.8) ml.min-1.kg-1 volunteered for the study. Each subject performed 30 minutes of step test in two Reebok steps heights (6 inch and 8 inches) with a rhythm of 120 beats.min-1. At this cadence 30 cycles of stepping up and down were completed in 1 min. Relative work load (% VO2 max), energy expenditure (EE), Heart rate (HR), percentage of age predicted maximum HR were measured using K4b2 Cosmed system. Result: The results showed that eight inch step is offering a significant higher value across most of the parameters investigated compared to six inch step. So it can be inferred that the higher the step height the higher will be the physiological responses. Conclusion: The present study clearly demonstrates that aerobic stepping on 6 inch bench height for 30 minutes with a cadence of 120 beats. min-1 may be more suitable and safe exercise module to improve cardio respiratory fitness for Indian young females. Further investigations are required to identify suitable exercise modules in terms of bench height, cadence and duration for different age groups and according to their fitness level (trained/untrained) and height on larger sample size.

Keywords

• Bench step aerobics
• cardiovascular fitness
• bench height.