Whole-body aerobic resistance training circuit improves aerobic fitness and muscle strength in sedentary young females.

This study aimed to determine whether a time-effective whole-body aerobic resistance training circuit using only body weight exercises is as effective in improving aerobic and anaerobic fitness, as well as muscular strength and endurance as a traditional concurrent style training combining resistance and endurance training. Thirty-four sedentary females (20.9 ± 3.2 years; 167.6 ± 6.4 cm; 65.0 ± 15.2 kg) were assigned to either: (a) a combined resistance and aerobic exercise group (COMBINED; n = 17) or (b) a circuit-based whole-body aerobic resistance training circuit group (CIRCUIT; n = 17). Training was 3 days per week for 5 weeks. Pre- and post-training measures included a (Equation is included in full-text article.)test, anaerobic Wingate cycling test, and muscular strength and endurance tests. After training, (Equation is included in full-text article.)improved with CIRCUIT by 11% (p = 0.015), with no change for COMBINED (p = 0.375). Both relative peak power output and relative average power output improved with CIRCUIT by 5% (p = 0.027) and 3.2% (p = 0.006), respectively, and with COMBINED by 5.3% (p = 0.025) and 5.1% (p = 0.003). Chest and hamstrings 1 repetition maximum (1RM) improved with CIRCUIT by 20.6% (p = 0.011) and 8.3% (p = 0.022) and with COMBINED by 35.6% (p < 0.001) and 10.2% (p = 0.004), respectively. Only the COMBINED group improved back (11.7%; p = 0.017) and quadriceps (9.6%; p = 0.006) 1RM. The COMBINED group performed more repetitions at 60% of their pretraining 1RM for back (10.0%; p = 0.006) and hamstring (23.3%; p = 0.056) vs. CIRCUIT. Our results suggest that a circuit-based whole-body aerobic resistance training program can elicit a greater cardiorespiratory response and similar muscular strength gains with less time commitment compared with a traditional resistance training program combined with aerobic exercise.