Purpose Of The Wingate Test

Introduction

The Wingate anaerobic test was developed to determine peak anaerobic power and mean power output in 30 seconds (Powers & Howley, 1990) (Dekerle, 2008)The test was developed to be highly reproducible and the bench mark for all other anaerobic power tests. The test will use different energy systems in which to power the muscles, with the main energy system being used for a cycle ergometer test of 30 seconds, will be the anaerobic glycolysis (Grace, 2009) Therefore a person with a well trained anaerobic glycolysis system will be able to perform the test well. Figure 1 shows the difference in systems for a cycling ergometer test.

10 sec 30 sec 90 sec

With what the graph shows, someone with a well trained anaerobic glycolysis system, will be the best person best trained for the event, due to the test being a 30 second long one. With these, we can see that different sports and different systems in which have been trained will have a major effect on the performance in the test

The wingate test can be used to identify the dominant muscle fibre type, over fast or slow twitch, by looking at peak power and the change from peak power to power over time and how much it drops. Individuals with a higher percentage of fast twitch fibres will generate a greater power output with a greater decrease over time. (Janot, 2006)

This leads us towards the hypothesis of “People with differently trained energy systems will have different results in the test, with higher peak power outputs for more anaerobically trained athletes”

Method

The test was performed by two different subjects. They were both weighed, so the resistance could be decided for the test. After this they would adjust the seat, according to the height of the subject, then start cycling for 5 minutes, at a standardised submaximal pace. The resistance was worked out previous (7.5% of the body mass, so a 70kg athlete would have had a 5.25 kg resistance weight on. When the subject is notified and ready, they have to start cycling at 60rpm and the weights will be dropped on command. The subject will have to cycle as fast as possible for the duration of the test (30 seconds.) For the duration of tests, the group should give encouragement verbally and attempt to motivate the subjects. After the 30 seconds of work, the subject should perform a 5 minute cool down. When this has been down, the results of peak power, fatigue index, mean power, time to peak power, minimum power and total work, will all be printed with a graph to show the power in watts over the 30 second work.

Results.

Graphs 1 and 2 labelled in appendix.

The graphs show the difference in the following results.

Subject 1 Weight: 70kg

Subject 2 Weight: 67.6 kg

Subject 1

Subject 2

Peak Power (watts)

914

871

Mean Power(w)

600

619

Time to Peak (s)

3.8

5.8

Fatigue Index(w/sec)

20.5

20.4

PP/weight(w/kg)

13.1

12.9

Meanpower/weight(w/kg)

8.6

9.2

Minimum Power (w)

378

377

Disucussion.

The results show a difference between Subject 1 and 2, with the peak power being higher in subject 1’s test, which shows a higher level of anaerobic power. The mean power was slightly higher for subject 2, and took a lot longer to reach the peak power also, but they had a lower fatigue index, showing a higher level of aerobic fitness. The minimum power shows a higher drop for subject one, which shows slightly less aerobic fitness. The subject 1 took 2 seconds less to reach the peak power, showing again a greater amount of anaerobic power, as it took a lot less time to reach the peak. Subject 1 has a higher relative peak power, and creates more power in accordance to their body weight, another factor in showing more power.

Subject 1, is a tennis player, at county level, which would be why he has a higher peak power output, due to tennis being an interval sport, therefore requires, short bursts of anaerobic power, along with a good base of aerobic fitness. This will require a combination of muscle fibre types, with the power being produced by the type II a and b fibres (Powers, 2006), in which the tennis player will have more of than a middle distance runner and football player (subject 2). According to (Powers & Howley, 1990) a long and middle distance runner, which is subject 2 is said to have around 60-70 percent slow twitch fibres, but footballers, will have a combination of fibre types, so the subject will have a mix of slow twitch and fast twitch, around 50% of each. The subject does show a good level of aerobic fitness, they are in the top 10% of people, in both watts and watts/kg, which would show a higher proportion of fast twitch fibres, IIa and IIb, due to the training from football received. Subject 1, who is a county tennis player, will have a slightly higher level of anaerobic fast twitch fibres, around 60%, with the rest being slow twitch in which to help them play long games and have a good base level of aerobic fitness.

Further Investigation.

The wingate test is generally regarded as the benchmark for anaerobic power tests, but has some limitations. One of the limitations is that it is only sport specifi for cycling, where a sprinter may be a very powerful individual, they will receive a lower score, due to them not being used to using the muscles for a cycling test, along with other sports which involve running or sports like rowing. (Powers & Howley, 1990)

Also studies by Dekerle and Burley (Marieb & K, 2004)state that 30 to 90 seconds is too short to determine critical power, and a test of 3 minutes would be more appropriate, where as in the study by Green, in the journal Sports Medicine, investigated that 30 seconds is the perfect time to develop critical power, so there is conflicting ideas in these.

The study is done in a lab, which can have a detrimental effect on the performer, a test outside lab conditions could have different results also, as it is not ecologically valid.

Bibliography

Dekerle, J. e. (2008). Determination of Critical Power From a Single Test. Sport and Science , 231-238.

Marieb, E., & K, H. (2004). Human Anatomy and Physiology. San Francisco: Pearson.

Powers, S., & Howley, E. (1990). Exercise Physiology Theory and Application to Fitness and Performance (Second Edition). Dubuque: Brown & Benchmark.

Bar-Or, O. (1987). The Wingate Anaerobic Test. An update on methodology, reliability and validity.

Sports Medicine 4:381-394.

Green, S. (1995). Measurement of anaerobic work capacities in humans. Sports Medicine 19:32-42.

Lab Report – Blood Pressure

Measurement of Blood Pressure using Manual and Automated methods

Introduction.

Blood pressure, is the force exerted by blood against the arterial walls, and is determined by how much blood is pumped, and the resistance to blood flow. (Powers & Howley, 1990)

Blood pressure is split into two different stages, which are the diastolic and systolic parts. The contraction phase of the heart beating is the systole, and the relaxed stage is called diastole. ((Powers & Howley, 1990). Different factors can have an effect on blood pressure, are the viscosity of blood, the heart rate, the resistance in the blood vessels, also the volume of blood. (Levick, 2003)

There are two main ways to measure it, the automated electronic method, and the auscaltatory method, which uses a sphygmomanometer. The auscaltatory method is dependent on accurate transmission (Grace, 2009). The automated blood pressure reader is an electronic device in which the reading come’s up automatically, and the manual one is pumped up by the measurer and uses a stethoscope to listen to certain sounds in which to measure the correct results. These sounds are called the Korotkoff sounds. There are five different phases in these sounds. The first phase is an appearance of a faint, repetitive tapping sound, which is the systolic blood pressure. The second phase is when these sounds soften and a swishing sound is acquired. The third phase is after a gap, then a sharper version of phase one. The fourth is a muffling of these sounds, which then become soft and blowing and the final phase is when all sounds disappear altogether, this is the diastolic pressure.

An experiment was conducted in which to find if there was a difference between the reading between the auscaltatory methods, and the automated method of measurement.

Method.

The cuff for the blood pressure monitor on the manual reader should be wrapped around the arm, which was then rest on a table. The rubber tubes coming from the cuff were placed inferiorly, running parallel to the site of the brachial artery, which helped for the person taking the blood pressure to be able to place the stethoscope accordingly. The cuff is then pumped up to 200 mmHg, then slowly released at around 2-3 mmHg a second, to wait for the sounds in which to hear. Then the blood pressure is taken , listening to the korotkoff sounds and then repeated two to three times, for each person in the group. After this the blood pressure was recorded using an automatic blood pressure reader and both sets of results were recorded and compared.

Results.

Subject

Manual

Average

A

116/74

128/68

116/72

120/71

B

129/76

129/74

129/75

C

119/69

124/72

122/71

D

129/76

124/77

127/77

E

150/90

148/89

149/90

Subject

Automatic

Average

A

127/85

121/76

125/70

124/77

B

118/77

115/73

117/75

C

114/58

105/55

100/58

106/57

D

115/66

114/67

115/67

E

146/90

144/91

145/91

Discussion.

After studying the averages, and the results, they show a slight difference, the highest one being, a difference of 16 mmHg in systolic and 14mmHg in diastolic. The rest have a small margin of error, not enough to make a difference in the results. Which shows a fairly accurate transmission of results from the One of the results is read as over 145/90, which is stage one hypertension, as the subject is on medication for the condition. Another two subjects are in pre hypertension from the results. These are common in people. The test had some difficulties in the measuring of the blood pressure, as some people who were measuring, were complete novices and were struggling to find and identify the correct sounds. The results do not deviate from the automated much, which is seen as the norm, for when novices are using the manual blood pressure reader. Two of subject C’s results are very low, in the area of hypotension, which may show error in the automated, as every other one was reasonably close to the manual. The automated readers have developed in the last 15 years and show’s less error, they virtually eliminate wrong readings, according to an investigation by Myers in 2008. Whereas a different investigation showed that they are often higher, made by Kiss et al.

To eliminate errors in this investigation, a silent room would be preferred, as the Korotkoff sounds are quiet, and there was a lot of background noise which made it hard to read and listen to the sounds and then make an accurate reading of blood pressure. Also more practise would be needed to gain more accurate readings for blood pressure.