Comparative Performance of Men and Women in Grade Walking

In various studies of the energy expended by males and females in level and grade walking some report females require less energy per kg of body weight than males, but others report equality of the sexes in this respect. In this study the possible influences on energy cost of differences in age or in height or in weight were eliminated. Twelve males and twelve females were selected to yield two groups having the same means of age, height and weight. Despite these uniformities, there were significant differences in that females had longer legs and lower oxygen consumption when resting and when walking at 80 meters per minute on a 7% grade. The difference between males and females in oxygen consumption in the grade walk was only 3.6%; this was accounted for almost entirely by the females' lower resting oxygen consumption. After subtracting the resting oxygen consumptions from the oxygen consumptions in the grade walk, the net values in liters per minute were 1.20 for females and 1.22 for males: not significantly different.