Regulated Monosyllabic Talk Test vs. Counting Talk Test During Incremental Cardiorespiratory Exercise: Determining the Implications of the Utterance Rate on Exercise Intensity Estimation

Siti Ruzita Mahmod; Leela T Narayanan; Rumaisa Abu Hasan; Eko Supriyanto

doi:10.3389/fphys.2022.832647

Regulated Monosyllabic Talk Test vs. Counting Talk Test During Incremental Cardiorespiratory Exercise: Determining the Implications of the Utterance Rate on Exercise Intensity Estimation

Front Physiol. 2022 Mar 30:13:832647. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.832647. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Siti Ruzita Mahmod¹, Leela T Narayanan¹, Rumaisa Abu Hasan¹, Eko Supriyanto²

Affiliations

¹ Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy Laboratory, School of Biomedical Engineering and Health Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Biomedical Engineering and Health Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

Abstract

Purpose: When utilizing breathing for speech, the rate and volume of inhalation, as well as the rate of exhalation during the utterance, seem to be largely governed by the speech-controlling system and its requirements with respect to phrasing, loudness, and articulation. However, since the Talk Test represents a non-standardized form of assessment of exercise intensity estimation, this study aimed to compare the utterance rate and the estimated exercise intensity using a newly introduced time-controlled monosyllabic Talk Test (tMTT) versus a self-paced Counting Talk Test (CTT) across incremental exercise stages and examined their associations with the exercise physiological measures.

Methods: Twenty-four participants, 10 males and 14 females (25 ± 4.0 yr; 160 ± 10 cm; 62 ± 14.5 kg) performed two sessions of submaximal cardiorespiratory exercise at incremental heart rate reserve (HRR) stages ranging from 40 to 85% of HRR: one session was performed with a currently available CTT that was affixed to a wall in front of the participants, and the other session was conducted with a tMTT with a 1-s inter-stimulus interval that was displayed from a tablet. In each session, the participants performed six stages of exercise at 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 85% HRR on a treadmill and were also asked to rate their perceived exertion based on Borg's 6 to 20 Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) at each exercise stage.

Results: The newly designed tMTT significantly delineated all the six stages of incremental exercise (p ≤ 0.017), while CTT could only delineate exercise stages at 60, 80, and 85% HRR. However, in estimations of exercise intensity, the tMTT demonstrated only moderate associations with HRR and Borg's RPE, similarly to the CTT.

Conclusion: If the purpose of exercise monitoring is to detect the intensity of light, moderate, and vigorous exercise intensity, the tMTT could be more universally applicable. However, due to its larger variability of speech rate across exercise intensities, the time-regulated approach may alter the speech breathing characteristics of the exercising individuals in other ways that should be investigated in future research.

Keywords: cardiorespiratory; exercise intensity; heart rate; monitoring; prescription; talk test.