Efeitos do impacto de diferentes tipos de treinamento e a percepção de idosos sobre as atividades cotidianas

Abstract

It is a fact that exercising is beneficial to the physical performance of old age people, which stimulates the increasing engagement of researchers in the quest for ways to make it more efficient. This study aims at evaluating and comparing the effectiveness of three types of training − aerobic, strength, and power − in improving the functional capacity of aged women as well as assessing their perception of the changes brought about by exercising. This study is characterized by being interventional, carried out on a population of aged volunteers and a parallel control group, and performed in three stages: a preliminary evaluation, intervention and follow-up re-evaluation, and a qualitative research on the content analysis of the volunteer s perception of changes. 123 physically independent women of old age not engaged in physical exercises were studied. The volunteers were randomly stratified into four groups: Control Group (GC, n=33) − who did no exercise; Aerobic Group (GA, n=30) − who practiced low intensity resistance exercise combined with moderate intensity walking; Strength Group (GF, n=30) − who trained high intensity resistance exercises; and Power Group (GP, n=30) − who trained moderate intensity resistance exercises at high speed. All groups went through the following tests: Aerobic endurance − the 6-minute walk test (T6m); Maximum strength − one repetition maximum (1RM); Power − Tendo Weightlifting Analyzer (TWA); and Agility - up and walk. GA-, GF-, and GP-volunteers underwent 24 sessions of training. With the exception of the GC-group, the other groups showed significant improvement in all tests. The comparison of the gains achieved by the GA-, GF-, and GP-groups in the T6m, power, and agility tests exhibited some differences, though not significant. The improvement reached by the GF-group in the 1RM test was considerably higher than that of the other groups. In the qualitative research, the volunteers testimonies revealed the importance of training for the improvement of the physical, psychological, social, and cognitive aspects of their lives. We conclude that the aerobic, strength, and power training carried out did improve the functional capacity of the old age volunteers; in the 1RM test, the GF-group stood out from the others. Coherence was observed between the quantitative results and the volunteers perception regarding the changes produced by physical training.