Initial ‘ Fitness ’ and Personality as Determinants of the Response to a Training Regime

Abstract

Ventilatory and cardiac responses to the riding of an electrically braked bicycle ergometer have been investigated in young male subjects during a variety of short intensive training regimes involving both maximal and sub-maximal work. In most experiments rides were repeated thrice daily for one or two weeks. With ‘ maximal effort’ rides of 5 min duration there was an increase in the rate of working over the training period. This was greater in a group performing one ride per day than in a second group (with slightly greater initial working capacity) performing three rides per day. In both groups the increase in rate of working was sufficient to mask any improvement in relative cardiorespiratory performance (V/min/watt).

With longer periods (15 or 30 min) of heavy but sub-maximal work there was a progressive reduction of both the ventilatory and the cardiac response to exercise, and calculations suggested that the efficiency of muBcular work was also increased. The magnitude of these changes could be related to initial ‘ fitness ’ Changes in respiratory quotient with repetition of the sub-maximal rides suggest that the ventilatory response to exercise was initially in excess of metabolic demand, but that this over-breathing passed as the subject became ‘habituated’ to the task. Changes of ventilatory response could be related to personality type as assessed by the Maudsley Personality Inventory.

Excess ventilatory work can itself limit performance and for this reason personality and psychological approach to successive work periods can influence both initial working capacity and also the response to a training regime.

Notes

∗Present address: Physical Fitness Unit, Department of Physiological Hygiene, School of Hygiene, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.