Effect of task factors on the heart rate recovery time in a lifting task

BACKGROUND: There is an extensive body of research reviewing the effect of task factors on the Maximum Acceptable Weight of Lift (MAWL) or heart beats elevation as a result of a manual material handling task. However, there are now studies that investigate the effect of task factors on the heart rate recovery time (HRR). OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the study was twofold: (1) to determine the HRR for a series of lifting tasks based on the activity heart rate and by using a set of task variables, (2) to compare the effect of three task factors on the HRR following a lifting task. METHODS: This research was constituted of capturing the duration that heart rate needs to get to a steady state following a lifting task, along with conducting the survey of perceived exertion (Borg). Three independent variables of this study (taskfactors) were weight of the lift (10 and 20 kg), frequency of the lift (6 and 9 lifts per minute), and the duration of the lift (5 and 10 minutes). Given the possible treatment combinations, a total of 8 treatments was obtained. Twenty-four university male students performed the lifting tasks in a between-subject design. Each participant performed one treatment by lifting a box from knuckle to shoulder height at a certain frequency, duration and weight. All eight treatments were equally replicated with three observations per treatment group. RESULTS: Increasing weight and frequency of the lift significantly increased the HRR (respectively by 37% and 34%), while the HRR had a slight decrease when duration was doubled (approximately −2.7%). Weight of the lift was the only factor led to a significant change in the perceived difficulty of the task among participants (approximately 20%). CONCLUSIONS: Among main factors, frequency and weight of the lift had a significant effect on the HRR (p-values < 0.1). Among the interaction effects, the interaction of frequency and duration had a significant effect on the HRR. The only factor that had a significant effect on the Borg-rating was weight of the lift (p-value < 0.1).