Elderly Women clinical trials

Effects of Water-based Aerobic and Combined Training in Elderly Woman

Purpose: Investigate neuromuscular, cardiorespiratory, functional capacity, quality of life and cognitive adaptations of eight weeks of water-based aerobic and combined training in elderly women previously trained for eight weeks of water-based aerobic training. Materials and methods: Fifty-four elderly women volunteer will be randomly divided into two groups with ratio of 2:1 (week 0): water-based aerobic training (WBA) and control group (CG). After eight weeks of intervention the WBA group will be randomly divided into two groups with ratio of 1:1 (week 9): WBA and water-based combined training (WBC). The intervention will last 16 weeks with two weekly sessions for water-based training groups and one weekly session for CG. The WBA program will consist only of aerobic exercises while the WBC program will consist of aerobic and resistance exercises in the same session. The WBA training will be performed in the percentages of heart rate corresponding to the anaerobic threshold and the resistance training sets will be performed at maximal effort. Assessments of muscular endurance of knee extensors and elbow flexors, peak oxygen consumption and ventilatory thresholds, occurrence of low back pain and disability from the same, functional capacity (30-second chair stand, 8-foot up-and-go and chair sit-and-reach) and of functional test 8-foot up-and-go with counting task will be performed before (week 0) and after interventions (week 17). Moreover, assessments of maximal dynamic strength in knee extensors and elbow flexors, maximal neuromuscular activity and maximal voluntary isometric contraction of knee extensor muscles, muscle thickness and echo intensity of knee extensor muscles, heart rate, blood pressure, functional capacity (6-minute walk), quality of life and cognitive function will be performed before (week 0), between (week 9) and after interventions (week 17). The data will be analyzed using Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) and Bonferroni post-hoc test (α=0,05).