RPE angle effects in young and middle-aged adults

The purpose of this study was to examine contraction intensity and arm abduction angle effects on perceived exertion between healthy young (n=14) and middle-aged (n=13) adults. Subjects participated in three separate experimental sessions during which, maximal (MVC) and sub-maximal (10-90% MVC, 10% increments, random order) arm abduction contractions were performed at one of the following randomly assigned angles: 30, 60 and 90 degrees Perceived exertion was sampled with a modified Borg category-ratio scale following each sub-maximal contraction. Voluntary arm abduction torque was significantly (p<0.05) greatest at 30 degrees , as compared to 60 degrees and 90 degrees , while no significant differences were observed between the young and middle-aged adults. Perceived exertion was significantly (p<0.05) greatest at 90 degrees abduction, as compared to 30 degrees and 60 degrees , and was not different between the two age groups. Power function modeling revealed that perceived exertion was significantly (p<0.05) fit to negatively accelerating non-linear trends for the middle-aged adults at all arm angles and at 90 degrees for the young adults. The findings demonstrated greater ratings of perceived exertion at elevated arm positions, while middle-aged adults displayed a non-linear contraction intensity dependency at the lower arm elevation angles.