Heart rate as an estimator of oxygen consumption during manual postal delivery.

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Abstract
Nine young healthy postmen performed 3 progressive maximal exercise tests (on a bicycle ergometer and with and without a 10-kg shoulder bag on a treadmill) for which the least-squares regression equations of heart rate (HR) on O2 consumption (.ovrhdot.VO2) were established. HR and .ovrhdot.VO2 were measured during 5 modes of simulated postal delivery: on level ground by foot (F), bicycle (B) and push-cart (C) and on stairs by foot (S/F) and push-cart (S/C). The respective work HR values were inserted into the 3 regression equations established for HR/.ovrhdot.VO2. The estimated .ovrhdot.VO2 values were systematically higher than the measured ones. The best regression was that established for the treadmill plus mailbag; the regression coefficients between the measured and estimated .ovrhdot.VO2 were > 0.75 and the percentage differences between the means of the measured and estimated values were .ltoreq. 10% for F and B delivery. All regressions yielded inaccurate estimations of .ovrhdot.VO2 for C, S/F and S/C delivery. HR was acceptable as an estimator of .ovrhdot.VO2 only when the test work closely resembled the muscle work in the job.

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