Influence of aerobic exercise with an intermission, using a bicycle ergometer, on fat metabolism in obese patients with gonarthrosis.

Abstract

Our study was conducted to acquire essential information on the fat metabolism of obese patients with gonarthrosis during aerobic exercise, with a bicycle ergometer, with an intermission and without an intermission. Two experiments were conducted. Six women with gonarthrosis participated in the first experiment and another six women with gonarthrosis participated in the second experiment. The first experiment was conducted to investigate the influence of the total programmed workload on fat metabolism during bicycle aerobic exercise, and the second was conducted to investigate the effect of an intermission on fat metabolism when exercise consisted of an equally distributed total 50-W workload. During the experiment three exercise patterns were tested (six training sessions, each with 5 min of aerobic bicycle exercise with of 5 min, three training sessions each with 10 min of exercise with intermissions of 5 min, and 30 min of continuous exercise). The first experiment revealed that there was a significant relationship between the increase in free fatty acids (FFA) after exercise and the workload (P < 0.05). The second experiment revealed that there was no significant difference in the increase of FFA among the three exercise patterns. Exercise that was undertaken at a 50-W workload had a negligible effect on the women's vital signs. The bicycle ergometer aerobic exercise with an intermission actually led to an increase in FFA values compared with the effects of the continuous aerobic exercise.