Effects of a 6-Week Indoor Hand-Bike Exercise Program on Health and Fitness Levels in People With Spinal Cord Injury: A Randomized Controlled Trial Study

Effect of self-guided training for the HandbikeBattle on body composition in people with spinal cord injury

“…Previous studies, under standardized (lab-based) handcycling or arm crank training conditions, showed contradictory results. Some studies found improvements in some of the body composition measures, like BMI [4,17], WC [4,[17][18][19], trunk, and android fat percentage [18]. However, other studies did not find changes in %fat measured by skinfolds [20] or BIA [17] after an eight (5×/wk, 30 min) or six weeks (3×/wk, 60 min) arm ergometer or handcycling training program, respectively.…”

“…Some studies found improvements in some of the body composition measures, like BMI [4,17], WC [4,[17][18][19], trunk, and android fat percentage [18]. However, other studies did not find changes in %fat measured by skinfolds [20] or BIA [17] after an eight (5×/wk, 30 min) or six weeks (3×/wk, 60 min) arm ergometer or handcycling training program, respectively. Furthermore, results of a review by Fisher et al [21] also showed that there is lack of evidence supporting the benefits of upper-extremity resistance circuit training (combination of weight training and aerobic training) on body composition in people with SCI.…”

Reliability and Validity of Subjective Measures of Aerobic Intensity in Adults With Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review

“…This study was considered ineligible for this review given that its protocol for the estimation trial (maximal exercise test) was not matched with the production trial (20‐minute exercise bout). Furthermore, the Borg CR10 has been used in various SCI exercise interventions [25‐37], but there are no reliability or validity data to support the use of this measure in adults with SCI performing aerobic exercise. Most of these interventions showed positive effects of exercise on fitness and health when prescribing a range of CR10 aerobic intensities (3‐7).…”

“…Notwithstanding, both RPE 6‐20 and CR10 have been used to assess exercise intensity in aerobic exercise interventions for adults with SCI [25‐37]. Furthermore, recent data suggest that using differentiated RPE could improve the assessment of upper‐body aerobic exercise intensity compared to the traditional overall RPE [38,39]; differentiated RPE involves separately rating peripheral RPE (signals from the exercising limbs) and central RPE (cardiorespiratory signals), instead of using overall RPE (integrated rating of the peripheral and central signals).…”

Development of Bi-modal exercise bicycle for physical fitness and rehabilitation

“…One of such methods is the use of regulated and supervised exercise as therapy both for prevention of heart conditions and following medication or surgery [2]. Some of the significant benefits of exercise have been reported to include improved body mass index (BMI), improved insulin levels and fitness [3], improved conditions in type II diabetes [4], as well as cardiopulmonary and muscular strength [5] in people with spinal cord injury. Exercise has also been reported to reduce posttraumatic stress disorder [6].…”