A253: Examining Health Variations Between Resistance Training with/without Breathing Retraining in Overweight Young Women

Physical inactivity and overweight are public health concerns among young Chinese women. A decrease in respiratory strength and endurance has been reported in obese/overweight individuals, as the increased fat accumulation in the chest wall and trunk leads to weakness of the respiratory muscle and changes in breathing patterns, resulting in decreased lung ventilation, the capacity for oxygen delivery, and utilization. Studies showed that RT can increase cardiopulmonary function as shown by improvement of submaximal exercise and increased peak oxygen uptake (VO2peak), resulting enhancement of muscle hypertrophy. Breathing retraining (BR) can also manipulate breathing patterns. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of RT and RT plus BR on pulmonary function, circulatory parameters, and aerobic capacity in young women. 24 young females were randomly allocated into the resistance training group (RT) and the resistance training combined with breathing retraining group (RT+B), and performed exercise training for eight weeks, three sessions/week and 60 minutes/session. 12 age and BMI-matched overweight young females were also recruited as the control group (C). The study procedures were approved by the Tianjin Sport University Ethical Advisory Committee (TJUS2024-032) and adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki. This study was registered on Clinical trials. Gov (ID: ChiCTR2400089050). Significant decreases in BMI, total body fat, TG, and LDL-c were observed in the two exercise groups (p < 0.05). In both exercise groups, significant increases in VO2peak were accompanied by noticeable increases in VC, FVC, MVV, FEV1, PEF, and decreases in SBP, DBP, SBP2, cSBP, and rAI (p < 0.05). The Group RT+B significantly higher increases in VO2peak, AT, and oxygen pulse level than those of the control and Group RT (p < 0.05). The main findings showed that RT and RT combined with BR improved respiratory function, lowered peripheral and central blood pressure, and regulated lipid profiles. The RT combined with the BR program achieved better effects in VC, MVV, SBP2, and cSBP than RT alone. Finally, only RT combined with the BR group significantly increased AT and peak oxygen pulse.