Effects of Low Volume Aerobic Training on Muscle Desaturation During Exercise in Elderly Subjects.

Aging enhances muscle desaturation responses due to reduced O2 supply. Even though aerobic training enhances muscle desaturation responses in young subjects, it is unclear whether the same is true in elderly subjects. Ten elderly women (age: 62±4 years) participated in 12-weeks of cycling exercise training. Training consisted of 30 min cycling exercise at the lactate threshold. The subjects exercised 15±6 sessions during training. Before and after endurance training, the subjects performed ramp cycling exercise. Muscle O2 saturation (SmO2) was measured at the vastus lateralis by near infrared spectroscopy during the exercise. There were no significant differences in SmO2 between before and after training. Nevertheless, changes in peak pulmonary O2 uptake were significantly negatively related to changes in SmO2 (r=-0.67, p<0.05) after training. Muscle desaturation was not enhanced by low volume aerobic training in this study, possibly because the training volume was too low. However, our findings suggest that aerobic training may potentially enhance muscle desaturation at peak exercise in elderly subjects.