Heart rate responses during the modified six-minute walk test among Special Olympics athletes
Lynneth Stuart-Hill1
, Paige Ryan1, Laura St. John1, Pauli Rintala2, Viviene Temple1
1School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
2Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
Keywords: Physical fitness testing, adaptive sports, cardiorespiratory fitness, validation study, instrumentation
Abstract
Objective: The construct validity of the modified six-minute walk test (m6MWT) was examined by addressing the following questions: 1) do participants attain a steady state plateau in heart rate (HR) within the range of 110-150 beats per minute? 2) at what percentage of their predicted HR maximum were participants during each minute of the test?
Material and Methods: Participants were 36 (male=56%) Special Olympics athletes aged 34.4 years (SD = 12.7). Following familiarization, participants completed the m6MWT while wearing a Polar Team 2 heart rate monitor.
Results: By the end of the first minute, average heart rate was 120bpm, and a factorial repeated measures ANOVA revealed that steady state was achieved by minute three.
Conclusion: The construct validity of the m6MWT was supported as two assumptions were met: that steady state HR was achieved and the work load was intense enough that steady state HR fell within the range of 110-150bpm.
Cite this article as: Stuart-Hill L, Ryan P, St. John L, Rintala P, Temple V. Heart rate responses during the modified six-minute walk test among Special Olympics athletes. Turk J Sports Med. 2021;56(2).56-60.; http://dx.doi.org/10.47447/tjsm.0493
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to authorship and/or publication of the article.
The authors received no financial support for the research and/or publication of this article.
