Validación concurrente y de constructo de una escala para valorar el esfuerzo percibido de hombres jóvenes durante el ciclismo acuático

Resumen

Physical activity in the aquatic environment with vertical body positioning has been recommended in a variety of physical exercise programs and activities due to its positive health and physical performance benefits. This has attracted and increased the number of apparently healthy individuals of different age groups and sex, and even those with special needs who exercise in the aquatic environment. In addition to the advantages of training in the aquatic environment for general physical conditioning, there has been an expansion in the universe of "aqua fitness" due to the appearance of various types of equipment developed to enhance the benefits of the specific physical properties of water. As a result of the acceptance of materials intended for physical conditioning in the aquatic environment in vertical positions, even other equipment/materials that to date were more typical of the land environment have been adapted, such as aquatic bicycles, the aqua step, mini trampolines, treadmills, aqua poles, oars and elliptical machines, etc. In this sense, water cycling is a form of physical conditioning that can be incorporated by people interested in maintaining or improving, among other aspects, cardiorespiratory fitness. Knowing that this type of activity can be applicable to all age groups and levels of physical conditioning. In general, it is known that in order to achieve a better prescription, control and safety of physical exercise, the most used parameters to monitor intensity during sessions and / or activities are usually the heart rate (HR) and the ratings or ratios of the character of the perceived exertion (RPE) during the realization of physical exercise. To monitor RPE during physical exercise, the Borg (1982) scale has been applied and based on it, other scales have been validated for different age groups and types of exercises, many of them applicable both to the field of fitness as well as clinical areas. These scales have been validated for exercises on land after establishing their adequacy through correlations with various physiological variables. However, there is still not specifically validated RPE scale for cycling developed in the aquatic environment. Therefore, the present thesis aims to validate a scale of perceived exertion rate to control the intensity during water cycling developed by young, healthy and fit men. Therefore, in this study, thirty young, healthy and physically active men performed a water cycle ergometer protocol with progressively increasing load. Concurrent validity was established by correlating the Aquatic Cycling Scale (ACS) with oxygen uptake, pulmonary ventilation (VE), HR, and blood lactate concentration (BL) responses to the maximal load incremental test. Construct validity was established by correlating the RPE derived from the ACS (0-10) with that obtained with the Borg Scale (6-20). Overall RPE, maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max), body weight indexed oxygen uptake (VO2), VE, HR, and BL were measured during each stage of exercise. The range of responses to exercise in the incremental test was: VO2max = 1.07–3.55 L/min; VO2 = 14.26-46.89 ml/Kg /min; VE = 23.17-138.57 L/min; HR = 99.54–173.31 beats/min; BL = 1.18-11.63 mM; Global RCT = 1.11-9.33. Correlation/ regression analyzes showed ACE as a positive linear function of VO2max (r = 0.78; p <0.05), VO2 (r = 0.87; p <0.05), VE (r = 0.86; p <0.05), HR (r = 0.77; p <0.05) and BL (r = 0.85; p <0.05). The ACE was distributed as a positive linear function of the RPE-Borg scale (r = 0.97; p <0.05). The ANOVA indicated that an incremental pedaling cadence of 15 beats per minute (bpm) caused significant differences (p <0.05) with respect to previous stages in most of the variables analyzed. In conclusion, the ACS is an appropriate tool to monitor the intensity of effort during cycling developed in the aquatic environment in young, healthy and fit men. In an applied way, it was observed that a brief increase in the water pedaling cadence of 15 bpm will increase the intensity of the exercise during water pedaling.