Cardiorespiratory and Metabolic Responses to Submaximal and Maximal Exercise in Elite Women Distance Runners*

Abstract

Methods 91In recent years competitive distance running for women has undergone remarkable growth and change. Competitive opportunities for female runners have been markedly expanded at the local, collegiate, national, and international levels. The number of women participating in distance running events has increased greatly. Perhaps most importantly in the present context, performance standards for female distance runners have improved dramatically over the past 10 years. Since women's distance running has become so popular and highly competitive, physiologic characteristics of successful female runners are of interest to coaches, trainers, and sport scientists. Cardiorespiratory and metabolic responses to exercise have been studied previously in highly trained women runners (3-6, 10, 11, 16, 19-22). However, most of the previously studied groups of women runners were not of elite caliber by current standards. Also, in general, previous studies of women runners have not conducted comprehensive examinations of physiologic responses to submaximal and maximal exercise. To date, no study of highly competitive female runners has employed a design comparable to that employed by Pollock and collaborators (14) in their frequently cited study of elite male distance runners. In that investigation, elite runners were compared with highly trained "good" runners and, within the elite group, subgroups of longdistance and middle-distance specialists were compared. The present study was intended to apply the design of Pollock et al. (14) to a study of women distance runners. Specifically, the purposes of this investigation were: (1) to describe the cardiorespiratory and metabolic responses to exercise of a group of elite women distance runners, (2) to compare the physiologic responses of elite women runners to those of good women runners, (3) to compare elite women long-distance runners with elite women who specialize in middle-distance events, and (4) to construct a physiologic profile of elite women runners that would allow comparison with previously studied groups of elite male runners. *ThIs research was supported by a grant from Coca-Cola USA of Atlanta, GA.The subjects for this study were 15 elite female distance runners and 13 good female distance runners. Descriptions of their training, competitive performance, and physical characteristics are presented in another paper in this supplement (18). Each subject gave informed consent. In addition, all subjects underwent a medical examination includng resting blood pressure and electrocardiogram prior to treadmill testing. The subjects were requested to avoid training for 12 h prior to the treadmifi (TM) evaluation and to refrain from eating during the 3 h before the tests. All subjects were given the same instructions and verbal encouragement during the TM tests by one of the two primary investigators (RRP, PBS). The TM evaluation had two parts, a submaximal run and a maximal run. After a standardized 1 0-mm warm-up of TM walking and running, a breathing valve and headgear...

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