Benedict & Murschhauser (1915) and Passmore & Durnin (1955) collected together and summarized the main observations made on the expenditure of energy when walking at different speeds. Edholm, Fletcher, Widdowson & McCance (1955) added figures for marching. With few exceptions these observations were all made on men. Mahadeva, Passmore & Woolf (1953) found no sex difference in the expenditure of energy of persons walking at 3 m.p.h. on an indoor track. In observations on two women and four men walking at 3.5-4 m.p.h., Booyens & McCance (1957) noticed that the women expended less energy than the men. Although there are more women than men in the population, little is known about the energy normally expended by women when they are walking. The expenditure of energy of ten men and ten women have therefore been measured while they were walking in order to find out (1) the range of individual variation, (2) whether there is a sex difference.
METHODSThe age, height and weight of the subjects and also the ratio between their height and the length of their legs are given in Table 1. Leg lengths were taken as the vertical distance from the greater trochanter to the floor, measured without shoes.The experiments were conducted over a straight outdoor level track 300 yards long. The subjects, wearing flat-heeled shoes, walked along it for 50 yards before their expired air was collected. This was then collected as they walked over the remaining 250 yards and back again. It is believed that these measurements of expenditures of energy will be within 5 % of steady-state figures; the two sex groups will be comparable in this respect.Single measurements of gross expenditure of energy and of length and frequency of stride were made on each subject while walking at two rates: (1) a leisurely one, and (2) 'to catch a bus'.Each speed was nearly the same within the group except for subject 2. Her leisurely walking speed resembled the fast walking of the other subjects, and she was consequently asked to walk more slowly, instead of faster, during the second measurement, so that her result could be compared with those of the others.Expired air was collected in Douglas bags (Douglas & Priestley, 1948). A conventional mouthpiece and valve holder with inspiratory and expiratory valves and two lengths of standard corrugated tubing were used in each measurement. The subjects wore the mouthpiece for 2-3 min 11 PHYSIO. CXXXVIII
The possibility of using the pulse rate as a means of measuring metabolic rate in man has been investigated. The relation between pulse rate and metabolic rate was initially established for six subjects by a standard technique over the range of activity from lying still to moderate exertion. The reliability of the relation was tested by repetition of the measurements, and, in the range of muscular exercise, by comparing values for metabolic rate computed from the pulse rate with measured values. While a subject is lying, sitting, and standing still the pulse rate is too variable to be useful for measuring metabolic rate. During muscular work, however, there is a consistent relation and, with certain qualifications, this can provide a practical method of measuring metabolic rate.
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