Cardio-metabolic responses during horse riding at three different speeds.

Purpose: The purpose of the present investigation was to study the metabolic demand and cardiovascular response during a typical horse riding session.

Methods: To this aim, 19 (9 male, 10 female) riders, regularly participating in competitions, were enrolled. They underwent a preliminary, incremental exercise test on a cycle-ergometer to assess their anaerobic threshold (AT) and VO2max.

Nervous Facilitation in Cardiodynamic Response of Exercising Athletes to Superimposed Mental Tasks: Implications in Depressive Disorder.

Motor commands to perform exercise tasks may also induce activation of cardiovascular centres to supply the energy needs of the contracting muscles. Mental stressors per se may also influence cardiovascular homeostasis. We investigated the cardiovascular response of trained runners simultaneously engaged in mental and physical tasks to establish if aerobically trained subjects could develop, differently from untrained ones, nervous facilitation in the brain cardiovascular centre.