Incremental Swimming Exercise Test: A Protocol to Evaluate Physical Performance in Rats

Santos AB, Domanski E, Sulzbacher MM, Basso EGP, Goettems-Fiorin PB, Frizzo MN, Ludwig MS, Heck TG. Incremental Swimming Exercise Test: A Protocol to Evaluate Physical Performance in Rats. JEPonline 2018;21(4):1-9. Animal models of swimming exercise have been used to investigate the effects exercise on many physiological variables in rats. The purpose of this study was to determine whether an incremental swimming exercise test (ISET) can discriminate trained and untrained rats. Eight 90 days old female rats were submitted to the ISET in individual tanks filled with 45 cm of water at 30[degrees]C. At the end of each 5-min stage, a weight was attached to the tail of the rats (0, 2, 4, 6, 8%, 10%, and 12% of body weight) and blood samples (~25 [micro]L) were obtained to determine blood lactate concentration. Fatigue was considered when the rat was unable to swim with the nostril above the water surface for 10 sec. The trained rats improved the performance in the ISET (Time to fatigue: 24.4 [+ or -] 1.25 min vs. 27.48 [+ or -] 2.17 min, P