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Supine cycling in pediatric exercise testing: disparity in performance measures.
Lindsay J May1, Rajesh Punn, Inger Olson
1Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford University, 750 Welch Road, Suite # 325, Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA, ljmay@stanford.edu.
Pediatric Cardiology
|November 21, 2013
Summary
Supine cycling offers a viable alternative for pediatric exercise testing, with minimal practical differences in peak oxygen uptake (peak VO2) compared to upright cycling. Established upright exercise norms can likely be applied to supine testing in children.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Exercise Physiology
- Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing
- Sports Medicine
Background:
- Supine cycling is a potential alternative for exercise testing in children.
- Physiological differences between supine and upright exercise in pediatric populations require further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare peak and submaximal metabolic data between upright and supine cycling positions in healthy children.
- To determine the clinical significance of observed differences for pediatric exercise laboratories.
Main Methods:
- 100 healthy children underwent cardiopulmonary exercise tests using both supine and upright cycle ergometry.
- Exercise was performed to exhaustion, with paired Student's t-tests and linear regression used for data analysis.
Main Results:
- Peak heart rate was comparable between supine and upright positions.
- While peak oxygen uptake (peak VO2) and other metabolic measures were significantly higher upright, the differences lacked practical significance per Cohen's criteria.
- Oxygen uptake efficiency slope also showed no practical difference.
Conclusions:
- Established normative data for upright cycling can likely be applied to metabolic measures from supine exercise testing in children.
- Supine cycling provides a valuable option for assessing exercise capacity in children unable to perform upright tests or undergoing specific procedures like exercise echocardiography.
