Aquarunning and Gains in Cardiorespiratory Fitness

The primary purpose of this investigation was to determine the effects of deep-water run training on treadmill exercise (TM) and deep-water running (DWR) maximal oxygen consumptions (&OV0312;O2). Ten (8 F, 2 M) healthy sedentary subjects participated in randomly assigned TM and DWR &OV0312;O2max tests both pre- and posttraining. Treadmill &OV0312;O2max was assessed using either the Bruce protocol or a modification of it. Each deep-water running &OV0312;O2max test began at a warm-up cadence of 48 cycles · min−1, a cycle consisting of two steps. Thereafter intensity was increased by increasing leg cadence (66, 72, 76, etc.) every 3 min. Participants also underwent an 8-wk progressive, aerobic, interval deep-water running program. The sessions were conducted 3 days a week at 63 to 82% heart rate max for 16 to 36 min. Deep-water running produced gains in &OV0312;O2max of 10.6 for TM and 20.1% for DWR. Posttraining &OV0312;O2max values for TM and DWR were significantly greater than pretraining values. Thus deep-water run training improved the cardiorespiratory fitness of sedentary adults, produced greater gains in deep-water running &OV0312;O2max than in treadmill exercise &OV0312;O2max, and resulted in a training carryover effect to treadmill exercise.