Contrasting Effects Of Exercise On Total And Intra-abdominal Visceral Fat

Abstract

Obesity is increasingly becoming a world-wide health concern leading to a variety of diseases, disorders and metabolic abnormalities such as coronary artery disease (CAD). PURPOSE: To evaluate the effects of 16 weeks of endurance (ET) and concurrent endurance and resistance training (CT) on anthropometric measures of fatness in inactive males. METHODS: Thirty-seven males were randomly assigned to an ET (N = 12), CT (N = 13) or non-exercising control (NE) group (N = 12). ET subjects utilized a combination of aerobic equipment, while the CT subjects utilized both endurance and whole-body resistance training in equal proportions. RESULTS: While the NE group only found an unfavourable increase in the waist to stature ratio (WSR), ET improved (P ≤ 0.05) five of the six anthropometric measures of total fatness (i.e. body mass, fat mass, sum of skinfolds, percentage body fat (%BF) and body mass index) and two of the four anthropometric measures of intra-abdominal visceral fat mass (i.e. conicity index (CI) and WSR). CT resulted in an improvement in three of the six measures of total fatness (i.e. fat mass, sum of skinfolds and %BF) and all four measures of intra-abdominal visceral fat mass (i.e. CI, waist circumference, waist to hip ratio and WSR). CONCLUSIONS: This study highlighted the superiority of endurance training over concurrent endurance and resistance training when assessing anthropometric indices of total fatness. However, concurrent endurance and resistance training was found to be more effective than endurance training at improving anthropometric measures of intra-abdominal visceral fat mass. Therefore, concurrent endurance and resistance training is successful at improving both anthropometric measures of total fatness and intra-abdominal fat mass.