Estimating Hemodynamic Responses to the Wingate Test Using Thoracic Impedance.

UNLABELLED: Techniques including direct Fick and Doppler echocardiography are frequently used to assess hemodynamic responses to exercise. Thoracic impedance has been shown to be a noninvasive alternative to these methods for assessing these responses during graded exercise to exhaustion, yet its feasibility during supramaximal bouts of exercise is relatively unknown. We used thoracic impedance to estimate stroke volume (SV) and cardiac output (CO) during the Wingate test (WAnT) and compared these values to those from graded exercise testing (GXT). Active men (n = 9) and women (n = 7) (mean age = 24.8 ± 5.9 yr) completed two Wingate tests and two graded exercise tests on a cycle ergometer. During exercise, heart rate (HR), SV, and CO were continuously estimated using thoracic impedance. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to identify potential differences in hemodynamic responses across protocols.

RESULTS: Maximal SV (138.6 ± 37.4 mL vs. 135.6 ± 26.9 mL) and CO (24.5 ± 6.1 L·min(-1) vs. 23.7 ± 5.1 L·min(-1)) were similar (p > 0.05) between repeated Wingate tests. Mean maximal HR was higher (p < 0.01) for GXT (185 ± 7 b·min(-1)) versus WAnT (177 ± 11 b·min(-1)), and mean SV was higher in response to WAnT (137.1 ± 32.1 mL) versus GXT (123.0 ± 32.0 mL), leading to similar maximal cardiac output between WAnT and GXT (23.9 ± 5.6 L·min(-1) vs. 22.5 ± 6.0 L·min(-1)). Our data show no difference in hemodynamic responses in response to repeated administrations of the Wingate test. In addition, the Wingate test elicits similar cardiac output compared to progressive cycling to VO2max. Key pointsMeasurement of cardiac output (CO), the rate of oxygen transport delivered by the heart to skeletal muscle, is not widely-employed in Exercise Physiology due to the level of difficulty and invasiveness characteristic of most techniques used to measure this variable.Nevertheless, thoracic impedance has been shown to provide a noninvasive and simpler approach to continuously measure CO at rest and during exercise.Results show that measurements of CO are not different and highly reliable in response to repeated administrations of the Wingate test.Despite vastly different intensities and durations, maximal CO was similar between the Wingate test and graded exercise to VO2max.