The effect of HIIT on body composition, cardiovascular fitness, psychological well-being, and executive function of overweight/obese female young adults.

PURPOSE

To evaluate the effect of a short-term HIIT program on the selected health-related parameters for overweight/obese young adult women in a university context.

METHODS

A total of 48 participants were randomly divided into two groups. The exercise group (HIIT) received a HIIT intervention of aerobics for 4 weeks, while the control group (CON) received no training. Body composition including waist circumference (WC), body fat percentage (BF %), Cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max), the score of Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), and Stroop word-color test (SCWT) results were assessed before and after the intervention along with within- and between-group comparisons.

RESULTS

All the indices were significantly improved in HIIT group ( < 0.01) after 4 weeks of intervention. No significant changes were found in CON. There were significant differences between HIIT and CON in cardiovascular fitness ( < 0.01), SDS ( < 0.01) and SCWT ( < 0.05) before and after 4 weeks. In addition, weekly measurements of HIIT effects showed significant changes ( < 0.01) from the second week in the variables of body composition, VO2max, SDS and SCWT when compared with the baseline and maintained the tendency till the end of program.

CONCLUSION

The short-term HIIT aerobics of the campus program conducted in a non-lab setting induced significant improvements in body composition, cardiovascular fitness, psychological well-being and executive function in overweight young female adults.