Interval Walking Ttaining for Middle-Aged and Older People: The Effects and the Evidence

Abstract

Faced with rapidly aging society, there are no exercise training regimens broadly available in the field to increase physical fitness and to prevent lifestyle related diseases for middle-aged and older people. We developed interval walking training (IWT) to repeat 5 sets of a 3-min fast walking 70% peak aerobic capacity for walking (W O 2peak)/ day intermitted by a 3-min slow walking at 40% W O 2peak , for 4 days/wk, for 5 months. Moreover, to determine W O 2peak on individuals and to measure their energy expenditure during even incline walking, we developed a portable calorie meter, JD Mate. Further, to instruct IWT to subjects even if they live remote from trainers, we developed e-Health Promotion System to transfer individual energy expenditure during IWT stored in the meter to a server computer through the internet and to return them their achievements with advices by trainers based on the database on >5,200 subjects accumulated by us, where we confirmed 5-month IWT increased physical fitness and improved the indices of lifestyle related diseases by 10-20% on average. Thus, since our system is to be run with low cost and less staff for more subjects, it would enable us to develop exercise prescriptions more fitted for individuals. We hope that the system will be broadly used for dental preventive medicine in future.