Role of Perceptual Factors on Endurance Profiles on Treadmill Exercise

It is common practice to unravel signs of possible cardiac ischemia by exposing the heart to graded degrees of exercise stress on treadmill under close monitoring and terminating it at safe limit. The safe limit of exercise duration and intensity is based on subjects who report a sense of exhaustion or appearance of any defined adverse sign whichever is earlier. Commonly, endurance is determined by subjective perception of distress leading to discontinuation of exercise. Scope of favourable manipulation of perception of stress was evaluated to extend the duration of exercise, and thereby the endurance. The indices of endurance such as duration of exercise, the distance covered and equivalents of O2 consumption (METs) as well as Cardiovascular adaptational changes of 30 young healthy male medical students are compared between two sets of conditions; {1} Routine treadmill exercise without intervention (Mode A) and later {2} same exercise repeated with individualized musical experience to favourably distract the perception of stress (Mode B). It has been conclusively demonstrated that perceptual modification of stress in Mode B caused significant improvement in endurance profiles, reflected by sustenance of longer duration of exercise, correspondingly greater cumulative distance covered and greater METs. Cardiovascular parameters of heart rate and blood pressure rise are comparatively less in Mode B, though not significant. The extent of cardiac stress evaluated by Rate-Pressure (R-P) product is also lesser spite of longer duration of exercise, pointing to better cardiovascular adaptational changes under states of perceptual modification (Mode B). Its relevance to day-to-day physical activities including exercise is obviously to make them enjoyable, rather than monotonous, for maximal benefit to health and endurance.