Physiological responses during treadmill walking at a self-selected pace: comparison between genders [Respostas fisiológicas durante a caminhada na esteira em ritmo autosselecionado:comparação entre os gêneros]

The objective of this study was to compare % VO2Max, %HRMax, %HRR, % VO2R, and MET between genders during walking at a self-selected pace and to determine whether the self-selected pace was physiologically effective in maintaining and improving cardiorespiratory fitness. Seventeen men (age: 24.05 ± 3.3 years) and 17 women (age> 22.58 ± 2.67 years) were submitted to two experimental sessions: (I) anthropometric assessment and incremental exhaustion test, and (II) 20-min treadmill walking bouts at a self-selected pace. The independent Student t-test was used to determine differences between genders, at an alpha level of 0.05. No significant differences in %HRMax (58.38 ± 8.86 for men and 62.12 ± 5.91 for women), % O2Max (37.54 ± 10.75 for men and 40.34 ± 7.27 for women), %HRR (36.83 ± 11.77 for men and 38.46 ± 8.33 for women), or % VO2R (31.88 ± 11.17 for men and 34.70 ± 7.74 for women) were observed between genders. However, the walking speed selected (km.h-1) was higher in men (5.96 ± 0.66, p<0.001) than women, a finding that probably resulted in higher MET values for men (6.07 ± 1.57, p