Comparison between the Physiological Responses and Subjective Ratings of a Group of Male Students to Three Backpack Designs

Mohamed Z. Ramadan and Sultan N. Al-Tayyar
Additional contact information
Mohamed Z. Ramadan: Industrial Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia
Sultan N. Al-Tayyar: Industrial Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 21, 1-10

Abstract: It is important for schoolchildren and their parents (or guardians) to know which backpacks exert the least strain on the cardiorespiratory system. In this study, we investigated the physiological responses of participants while they were walking on a treadmill and wearing one of three different backpacks (A, B, and C) under two different load-carrying conditions (equivalent to 10% and 15% of their body mass, respectively). The first condition was used as a control and involved walking without a backpack, while the second involved wearing a backpack and carrying a certain weight. Thirty-one male students from King Saud University walked on a treadmill at 0.861 m/s and at a 0% inclination angle, while having their heart rates (beatsmin −1 ), oxygen uptakes (VO2, mLmin −1 ), respiratory rates (breaths, VO2min −1 ), perceived exertion rates (PER, Borg scale), and backpack preference rates (BPR) measured and recorded. The results of our within-subject experimental design revealed that the physiological results varied significantly depending on the type of backpack. Backpacks B and C were superior to Backpack A, resulting in lower physiological responses and higher subjective preferences. Students carrying more weight experienced higher physiological stress; moreover, the use of Backpack C led to the lowest physiological strains and higher subjective preferences.

Keywords: load carriage; treadmill; walking; children; low back pain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/21/4104/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/21/4104/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:21:p:4104-:d:280045

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().