Physiological and perceived responses verified during gait have been widely studied; however, few investigations have tried to compare these responses in groups of different body mass indices during gait in self-selected rhythm. The aim of the present study was to compare the physiological and perceived responses among normative (N), overweighed (OW) and obese (OB) women during gait in self-selected rhythm. Sixty-six sedentary women, aged between 20 and 45 years and divided in three groups according to their body mass indices participated in the study: (i) N (18.5 - 24.9kg·m-2, n = 22); (ii) OW (25.0 - 29.9kg·m-2, n = 22) and (iii) OB (> 30.0kg·m-2, n = 22). Each participant performed a familiarization session and two experimental sessions (maximal incremental test and 20m-walking test in self-selected rhythm) to determine the physiological (heart rate - HR and oxygen consumption - O2) and perceived responses (perceived exertion - PE) of each session. One-way ANOVA was applied to compare the physiological and perceived responses obtained during gait in self-selected rhythm among the three experimental protocols, applying the Tukey's post hoc test with p < 0.05. Although the obese subjects have registered lower walking velocity (1.30 ± 0.13m·s-1) compared with the normative and overweighed ones (1.69 ± 0.11 and 1.58 ± 0.22m·s-1, respectively) (p < 0.05), they presented similar physiological response ((58.7 ± 8.6; 63.1 ± 12.6; 64.8 ± 11.1 %O2 and 75.1 ± 7.8; 78.8 ± 8.5; 78.7 ± 7.2 %HRmax, for the normative, overweighed and obese groups, respectively). Moreover, the perceived responses did not differ between experimental groups (11.6 ± 1.6; 11.7 ± 1.6; 12.2 ± 1.8, respectively). Therefore, it can be concluded that regardless of the BMI, adult women present similar physiological and perceived responses during gait in self-selected rhythm even when walking in different velocities.
obesity; physical activity; exertion
