Abstract
It is reported that walking is effective for most of elderly people to maintain their physical fitness. The walking, especially the free speed walking can be continued safely and comfortably. However, it is not well investigated that the free speed walking is whether sufficient exercise to maintain their physical fitness. In this paper, the movement intensity of the free speed walking was evaluated with physiological indices. Ten healthy women (aged 75〜80) as the elderly group and Ten young men (aged 22〜28) as the control group were selected as subjects. The oxygen intake level (V0_2) and the heart rate (HR) were measured under the free speed walking and the rest conditions. In the rest condition, V0_2 of the elderly group was 3.06ml/kg/min and that of the control group was 4.93ml/kg/min. These values are different from American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM)'s recommended value (3.5ml/kg/min) that is widely used for evaluating the metabolic equivalents (METs). It can be said that the effect of aging has to be considered for estimating METs. The movement intensity of the free speed walking was measured as 3.84METs, which is classified as middle-class activity strength. It was suggested that the free speed walking is an appropriate activity for elderly people to improve their QOL.
