Are smartphones better in guiding physical activity among sedentary young adults? A randomised controlled trial

Background. Physical activity promotion in young adults is found to be associated with improved psychosocial well-being and academic performance. Recently smart-phones are found to be a potent means for promoting physical activity. So far no study has compared smartphones and traditional walking prescriptions in improving functional capacity and compliance in college adults. Methods. Of 77 participants recruited, only 26 adult sedentary undergraduates with step count less than 7500 steps/ day were completed one of the two interventions: American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guided walking (n = 14) and smart-phone application (SMART) guided walking (n = 12). The pre and post-intervention oxygen uptake (VO₂ ), anaerobic threshold (AT at VO₂ ), heart rate (HR) and ventila-tory equivalents of carbondioxide (V_E /VCO₂ ) were measured by metabolimeter (K5, Cosmed, Italy). After normalization, continous variables of VO₂, AT at VO₂, V_E / VCO₂, HR were analysed by two way analysis of variance (2 X 2 ANOVA) at a level of significance of 0.05. Results. Twenty six participants completed the study. Except treadmill distance and time, all exercise test variables including aerobic capacity (3.20 ml/kg/min, d = 0.492), anaerobic threshold (-11.03, d = 0.769), ventilatory equivalent of carbon dioxide (2.32 ml/kg/min, d = 0.801), heart rate (-10.50 b/min, d = 0.0792) improved significantly. Compliance was found to be 17.65% greater in the SMART than ACSM group. Conclusions. Physical activity promotion is efficient with SMART group than routine-ly administered traditional exercise prescription in improving the functional capacity of sedentary adults. Long-term compliance may be better with smartphone guided exercise prescription.