Premium
Effects of two field continuous incremental tests on cardiorespiratory responses in Standardbred trotters
Author(s) -
Fortier J.,
Goachet A. G.,
Julliand V.,
Deley G.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of animal physiology and animal nutrition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.651
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1439-0396
pISSN - 0931-2439
DOI - 10.1111/jpn.12242
Subject(s) - cardiorespiratory fitness , blood lactate , heart rate , zoology , medicine , vo2 max , mathematics , cardiology , blood pressure , biology
Summary In humans, cardiorespiratory responses are widely evaluated from field incremental exercise tests. On the contrary, equine exercise physiology faces a huge lack of oxygen consumption measurements ( VO 2 ) in field conditions due to technical concerns. The aim of this study was to test the effects of two incremental continuous field tests on cardiorespiratory responses in Standardbred trotters. The two protocols were realized at trot and ended when horses galloped. The tests started at 4.2 m/s (T1) and 6.4 m/s (T2), with speed increments of 1.4 m/s every 3 min for T1 and 0.8 m/s every 2 min for T2. Velocity (v), heart rate ( HR ) and gas exchanges were recorded continuously, and blood lactate concentration [La − ] was measured before and after tests. Values recorded at the end of the tests were considered as peak values. The v peak values were 10.6 ± 0.3 and 10.7 ± 0.7 m/s for T1 and T2 respectively. Horses reached higher VO 2peak (T1: 116.6 ± 11.5 ml/min/kg; T2: 88.9 ± 10.2 ml/min/kg; p < 0.05) and HR peak (T1: 217 ± 5 bpm; T2: 209 ± 3 bpm; p < 0.05) during T1 compared with T2. T1 was significantly longer than T2 (17.5 ± 1.9 vs . 12.9 ± 1.6 min respectively, p < 0.01), and the number of steps entirely ran tended to be different (T1: 5.6 ± 0.6; T2: 6.2 ± 0.8, p = 0.07). Compared to T2, the design of T1 appeared easier to implement and allowed higher cardiorespiratory responses. The relationship between HR ‐ VO 2 obtained through T1 gave a better correlation between the two variables than T2. These findings suggest that T1 might be better than T2 for evaluating cardiorespiratory adaptations to exercise and for estimating aerobic energy expenditure in exercising trotters.