Report

Athletes with tetraplegia achieve their highest heart rates when exercising on court

The physiological assessment of highly-trained athletes is a cornerstone of many scientific support programs. It is well known that tetraplegia results in lower maximum heart rates due to the innervation of the heart which is affected by spinal cord injury.

Lead academic:
Professor Vicky Tolfrey
Additional academics:
Dr Christof Leicht
Funder:
The Peter Harrison Foundation

The physiological assessment of highly-trained athletes is a cornerstone of many scientific support programs. It is well known that tetraplegia results in lower maximum heart rates due to the innervation of the heart which is affected by spinal cord injury

However, in the years that we have tested athletes with tetraplegia we have observed some untypically high heart rates when assessing performance on court.

Methods

We retrospectively reviewed our data on Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby athletes collected during the last two Paralympic cycles. We extracted and compared peak heart rate responses between a standard laboratory-based incremental exercise test on a treadmill and two different maximal field tests (4 min and 40 min maximal push on court).

Main findings and applications

  • Both field tests elicited higher peak responses than the laboratory-based test, implying that laboratory-based incremental protocols preclude the attainment of true peak responses.
  • This may be due to the different locomotor patterns required to sustain wheelchair propulsion during treadmill exercise or that maximal incremental treadmill protocols only require individuals to exercise at or near maximal exhaustion for a relatively short period of time.
  • We acknowledge that both field- and laboratorybased testing have respective merits and pitfalls and suggest that the choice of test be dictated by the question at hand: if true peak responses are required then field-based testing is warranted. On the other hand, laboratory-based testing may be more appropriate for obtaining physiological responses across a range of standardised exercise intensities.

Reference

  • West C. R., Leicht C. A., Goosey-Tolfrey V. L. and Romer L. M. (2016). Perspective: Does laboratory-based maximal incremental exercise testing elicit maximum physiological responses in highly-trained athletes with cervical spinal cord injury? Frontiers in Physiology. 6: 419. DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2015.00419