Abstract
Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to serious body composition adaptations characterized by increasing whole body fat mass and decreased soft tissue lean mass (LM). These adaptations in body composition may lead to several cardio-metabolic disorders that reduce the quality of life, increase patients' and caregivers' burden and eventually leads to mortality. Exercise, an appropriate dietary regimen, and an active lifestyle may alleviate several of the negative effects on body composition after a SCI. Today however, there is no established consensus on the recommended dose, frequency or type of exercise to ameliorate several of the body composition sequelae after an acute SCI. Resistance training has been previously recommended as an effective strategy to restore soft tissue LM and decrease fat mass (FM). The strategy can be simply implemented as a routine home-based training program using free weights or resistance bands after a SCI. Additionally, upper extremity (UE) circuit resistance training has been previously used to improve cardiovascular and metabolic parameters after a SCI; however compared to the vast knowledge regarding the able-bodied (AB) population, the effects of UE circuit resistance training on body composition after a SCI is not well established. In summary, the available evidence does not support the rationale that UE circuit resistance training can lead to positive adaptations in body composition after a SCI. Further studies are suggested to examine the effects of UE circuit resistance training on body composition.
Highlights
Body composition refers to the relative amount or percentage of different types of body tissue that are related to health [1]
Many researchers have established that metabolic risk factors, including reduced levels of high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL), glucose intolerance, and insulin resistance are common within Spinal cord injury (SCI) individuals [918]
After SCI, individuals with paraplegia and tetraplegia experience weight loss because of the rapid loss in lean body mass and failure to maintain adequate caloric intake [8, 18]. This is followed by a gradual increase in body weight in the form of increasing fat mass (FM) and expansion of adipose tissue accumulation into nonadipose sites which leads to ectopic adiposity [8, 12, 18, 19]
Summary
Body composition refers to the relative amount or percentage of different types of body tissue (bone, fat, muscle) that are related to health [1]. Twelve weeks of progressive lower extremity resistance training evoked by surface neuromuscular electrical stimulation demonstrated muscle hypertrophy and improved regional body composition, (decreased central adiposity and intramuscular fat) in men with SCI [41]. Recent studies among AB populations have provided sufficient evidence that resistance training has shown improvements in muscular strength and cardiorespiratory fitness, and in body composition.
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