Aerobic requirement of bench stepping

The purpose of this study was to: (1) verify the aerobic requirement (AR) of bench stepping (BS); (2) determine the effect of leg length (LL), bench height (BH), stepping rate (SR), body weight (BW), and fat free mass (FFM) on the AR of BS; and (3) compare the HR and VO2 of BS with treadmill walking/running (TM). Twenty-eight females completed randomly assigned BS sessions with hands on hips at 30 and 32 step cycles.min-1. Sessions consisted of four 5 min. bouts at BH of 15.2, 30.4, 25.4 and 30.5 cm. A 4 x 2 repeated measures ANOVA determined that VO2 was significantly different between each BH and SR (p < 0.01) with no significant interaction between BH and SR (p > 0.05). A stepwise multiple regression determined that BH, BW, SR, FFM, and LL significantly affected BS VO2 (p < 0.05) with BH and BW accounting for 83% of the VO2. A series of t-tests found no significant difference (p > 0.05) between measured VO2 and that predicted by the ACSM equation (1) at 15.2, 20.3 and 25.4 cm. Measured VO2 was significantly greater than predicted at 30.5 cm (p < 0.01). A repeated measures ANCOVA determined that the VO2/HR slopes for BS and TM were not parallel (p < 0.01). Point testing determined that the HR elicited by TM at a specific VO2 was significantly higher than the BS HR until 34 ml.kg-1 x min-1, but the SEE revealed large overlapping of HR.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)