Metabolic Energy Consumption during Green Area Management

Abstract

The energy consumption measurement is important to carry out a correct risk evaluation of workers during green area management with the scope to achieve workstyle improvements. In contrast to sporting activities, few studies have been conducted on the assessment of physical fatigue by determining the functional parameters of the human body and oxygen consumption in this sector. This study aims to measure the energy cost of weed control using a wearable telemetry system Cosmed K4. For this purpose, twelve male workers, grouped into three groups of four workers each, were monitored during the work of weed control carried out with a brush cutter (by testing three different cutting heads). The monitoring period lasted 18 min including a 5-min rest period at the end of work. This study shows how the use of facilitating tools such as brush cutters contributes to getting low energy metabolism rate values, in tests performed equally on average to 119 Wm−2.

Keywords

• indirect calorimetry
• oxygen consumption
• heart rate
• occupational illness