None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Many women fail to achieve the current exercise guidelines for pregnancy which recommend that pregnant women without contraindications engage in 20-30 minutes or more of moderate intensity exercise on most days of the week. As exercise enjoyment is an important factor which affects exercise adherence, it is important to determine the optimal format of exercise which promotes enjoyment. Interval type exercise has been reported to be more enjoyable in the non-pregnant population but no study had investigated this format of exercise in pregnancy. Thus, this trial investigated the effects of adding brief higher intensity intervals to moderate intensity continuous cycling on the overall energy expenditure and intensity of exercise and the enjoyment of exercise. It was hypothesised that the addition of brief higher intensity intervals to moderate intensity continuous cycling will increase the overall energy expenditure and intensity of exercise, at the same time as enhancing enjoyment. The trial of interval cycling was found to increased energy expenditure by 28% when compared to the continuous cycling trial. At the same time, the interval cycling trial significantly enhanced the enjoyment of exercise in late pregnancy. Importantly, the findings was specific to recreationally active women only, but this study provides a rationale for future studies to examine the physiological and psychological responses to regular interval training during pregnancy to optimise exercise prescription.
Interventions
This study was conducted at a single-centre, with two sessions of acute, laboratory based intervention using a counterbalanced Latin square design. The sessions are one continuous cycling session and one interval cycling session performed within a two week period with at least two days between sessions.
On two separate occasions, each participant individually completed 30 minutes of cycling on the stationary cycle ergometer commencing and ending with a 5-minute warm up and cool down at 30 W. T
This study was conducted at a single-centre, with two sessions of acute, laboratory based intervention using a counterbalanced Latin square design. The sessions are one continuous cycling session and one interval cycling session performed within a two week period with at least two days between sessions. On two separate occasions, each participant individually completed 30 minutes of cycling on the stationary cycle ergometer commencing and ending with a 5-minute warm up and cool down at 30 W. This ensured that exercise performance was self-paced and not affected by the presence or pace of other exercisers. The 20-minute conditioning phase between the warm up and cool down consisted of the following performed in a counterbalanced order 1) continuous cycling (CONT) at a steady power output equivalent to 65% HRmax or 2) interval cycling (INTV) consisting of continuous cycling at the same power output as CONT, but with the addition of six 15-second self-paced higher intensity efforts repeated every three minutes, performed with the same instructions as familiarisation. All sessions held in the Alan Morton laboratory at the School of Sport Science Exercise and Health, UWA and were supervised by the main investigator.
Sponsors
School of Sport Science Exercise & Health, The University of Western Australia
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Crossover
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 40 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Healthy, non-smoking, recreationally active women with uncomplicated singleton pregnancies were recruited upon entering their third trimester at 28 weeks of gestation.
Exclusion criteria
1. Multiple pregnancy 2. Highly trained (physically) pregnant women (i.e athlete) 3. Smoker 4. Less than 28 weeks pregnant 5. Has pregnancy complications
Outcome results
None listed