Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine

Future Research Projects

EXERCISE DOSE- RESPONSE RELATIONSHIPS IN HEALTHY WOMEN AGED 65-74 YEARS

Supervisor

Professor Greg Gass
Professor of Exercise and Sports Science

BACKGROUND

Evidence is accumulating that exercise is cardiovascular protective, vascular protective and neuroprotective, and can compress morbidity. For the older individual, exercise potentially represents a cost effective intervention with multi-system benefits. Clinicians and health professionals with the responsibility for prescribing exercise as a therapeutic intervention have little knowledge or understanding of the exercise dose-response relationship for older individuals. There is little information on the most efficacious exercise dose for older people to improve their health status, most clearly highlighted by “Can I exercise once a week for 2 hr or do I have to exercise 4 times per week for 30 min?” Over 90% of general practitioners who responded (n = 110) to a questionnaire on exercise prescription (Gass and Gass 1998 unpublished data) indicated that they recommended regular exercise for their older patients.  However, less than 1 % of responding GP’s demonstrated knowledge about effective exercise prescriptions to achieve the beneficial outcomes sought by the prescribing GP. Indeed, recent guidelines provided to GP’s for prescribing exercise to their older patients are incomplete.

AIMS OF THE PROJECT

  1. To quantify the rate (on response) and amplitude of response in selected dependent variables when the frequency of the exercise sessions are varied (1 to 5 session/wk) and the exercise intensity (50% of VO2max) and number of exercise sessions (60 sessions) are constant.
  2. To quantify the rate (on response) and amplitude of response in selected dependent variables when the exercise intensity (50% of VO2max ) and the total exercise time per week (120 min/wk) are fixed with variations in the exercise duration per session (24 to 120 min/session) and exercise frequency per week (1 to 5 session/wk).

METHODS

Will depend upon the experimental question posed as part of the honours programme. The methods for measuring the exercise and exercise training responses are established.