VO2max responses in separate and combined arm and leg air-braked ergometer exercise

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Abstract
Rms and legs in eliciting the maximal O2 uptake (VO2max). Ten healthy, non-arm-trained males did progressive exercise to exhaustion on the ergometer instrumented to partition the push-pull arm exercise from the cycling leg exercise. Exercise was done with arms only (100% arms), legs only (100% legs, with arms at sides), and in combinations of 10% arms/90% legs, 20% arms/80% legs, and 30% arms/70% legs. To approximate conventional bicycling, four subjects exercised to exhaustion doing leg cycling on the air-braked ergometer with the hands fixed to stationary bars. The maximal power output and VO2max were not significantly different (P>0.05) for the 10% arms/90% legs and the 20% arms/80% legs combinations. Maximal power output and VO2max for 10% arms/90% legs was significantly greater than that for the 100% arms, 100% legs, and 30% arms/70% legs regimens (P0.05). We conclude that push-pull arm exercise of 10 or 20%, combined with leg cycling of 90 or 80%, respectively, or leg cycling with hands fixed to bars optimize the arm/leg contributions in eliciting VO2max. These findings suggest that the upper-body stabilizing effort in conventional cycling (legs cycling, hands fixed) contributes approximately 10–20% to inducing VO2max. The use of legs alone, or a proportion of 30% arms/70% legs elicit lower VO2max values. In the former case, this occurs because of the limitation in active muscle mass, and in the latter case, because of excessive arm loading and an insufficient metabolic challenge to the legs. ©1984The American College of Sports Medicine...