A study of physiological responses to different forms of exercise

As the R&D technology of sporting goods advances, many exercise patterns have been, and more are being, designed into equipment for sport. Presently commonly used exercise modes that can set at certain measurements include treadmill, step exercise, upright stationary bicycle, among others. With so wide a range of sporting products, most of their program designers would duplicate the parameters of exercise dose inside one single product to a different product to save time and cost. However, can the program for exercise doses used on similar products be duplicable? Also, will it bring about the same effects or even be able to replace? These all are questions to be answered. This study conducted experiments with the elliptical trainer and the bicycle, both of which have similar exercise trails of lower extremity for two specific objects. One, to compare the physiological responses resulting from these exercise modes of elliptical trainer and bicycle; and, the other, to analyze the variances and correlation between age, genders and physiological responses to each of these exercise modes. The subjects of test were 80 healthy grown-ups of ages between 20 and 65, each received tests of the two modes of exercise in random order. The test involved two phases; the first gathered the subjects' basic data. The second conducted the submaximal exercise test to understand the differences between the exercise modes of elliptical trainer and bicycle, both of the same intensity, in the physiological responses for different ages and genders. The results also aim to provide as reference for product R&D persons in the development of different product attributes and formulating exercise prescriptions.