ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 1998 March;38(1):59-65

Copyright © 1998 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Exercise tolerance, body composition and blood lipids in obese African-American women following short-term training

Szmedra L. ¹, Lemura L. M. ¹, Shearn W. M. ²

¹ Graduate Division of Exercise Science, Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, USA; ² Department of Cardiology, Cardiac Exercise Laboratory, Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, Pennsylvania, PA, USA

Back­ground. The pur­pose of ­this inves­ti­ga­tion was to ­examine the exer­cise tol­er­ance, ­body com­po­si­tion and ­blood ­lipids in ­African-Amer­ican ­women, pos­sessing ­greater ­than or ­equal to 30% ­body fat, fol­lowing six ­weeks of endu­rance ­training.
­Methods. ­Oxygen con­sump­tion (V.O2), cen­tral hemo­dy­namics, ­blood ­lipids, ­body ­weight, ­body fat, and the ­body ­mass ­index of ­seven sub­jects (21.0±0.8 yrs) ­were ­studied. ­Heart ­rate (HR), ­blood pres­sure (BP), exer­cise dura­tion, ­rating of per­ceived exer­tion (RPE), ­blood lac­tate (bLA) and V.O2 ­were ­obtained in ­response to a max­imal exer­cise tol­er­ance ­test on a motor­ized tread­mill. Sub­jects ­trained ­three ­times per ­week for 50 min­utes per ses­sion (30 min­utes at 70% max­imal ­oxygen con­sump­tion (V.O2max).
­Results. Depen­dent “t”-­tests ­revealed sig­nif­i­cant (p<0.05) ­increases in V.O2max, 27%; exer­cise dura­tion, 31%; as ­well as ­peak HR, sys­tolic ­blood pres­sure (SBP), and bLA. ­Values for sub­max­imal HR, SBP, RPE ­during the ­post-­training ­test ­were ­lower. In addi­tion, ­body ­weight, ­body fat and the ­body ­mass ­index ­decreased 2.2%, 1.3% and 3.4% respec­tively. ­There ­were no ­changes in ­blood ­lipids.
Con­clu­sions. ­These find­ings sug­gest ­short-­term ­training at 70% V.O2max pro­vides the nec­es­sary stim­ulus for ­obese ­women to ­improve exer­cise tol­er­ance and ­body com­po­si­tion. How­ever, the ­training stim­ulus is insuf­fi­cient to ­alter ­lipid pro­files.