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Muscle function and functional ability improves more in community-dwelling older women with a mixed-strength training programme

Background: supervised training can reach a limited number of elderly people. Objective: to determine the impact of a 1-year mixed-strength training programme on muscle function (MF), functional ability (FA) and physical activity (PA). Setting: twice-a-week hospital-based exercise classes and a once...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Age and ageing 2005-03, Vol.34 (2), p.141-147
Main Authors: Capodaglio, P., Capodaglio, E. M., Ferri, A., Scaglioni, G., Marchi, A., Saibene, F.
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Background: supervised training can reach a limited number of elderly people. Objective: to determine the impact of a 1-year mixed-strength training programme on muscle function (MF), functional ability (FA) and physical activity (PA). Setting: twice-a-week hospital-based exercise classes and a once-a-week home session. Participants: twenty-eight healthy community-dwelling men and women on the training programme and 20 controls aged over 75 years. Methods: training with two multi-gym machines for the lower limbs at 60% of the repetition maximum (1RM). At-home subjects used elastic bands. Measurements: maximum isometric strength of knee extensors (KE), ankle plantar flexors (PF), leg extensor power (LEP), functional reach (FR), chair rise 1 (CR1) and 10 times (CR10), bed rise (BR), six-minute walking test (6MWT), stair climbing (SC), get-up-and-go (GU&G), one-leg standing (1LS). PA was assessed with the Paqap© questionnaire. Results: women were significantly weaker than men at baseline: −47% for KE and −59% for PF. Training induced significant gains in MF and FA in the training females; males improved significantly only in FA. PA levels increased non-significantly (2%) in all of the training group. Conclusions: long-term mixed-strength programmes can improve MF and FA in elderly females, and FA in elderly males.
ISSN:0002-0729
1468-2834
DOI:10.1093/ageing/afi050