Effects of Acute Resistance Exercise on Late-Middle-Age Adults’ Goal Planning

Abstract

We investigated the effects of an acute bout of resistance exercise on the planning component of executive function in late-middle-age adults. With a within-subjects design, 30 community-dwelling adults (mean age = 57.20 ± 2.93 yr, 16 females) experienced both resistance exercise and control treatment conditions. The exercise condition involved two sets of 10 repetitions of 70% of 10-repetition maximum of seven exercises, whereas the control condition consisted of reading. Planning was assessed before and immediately after each treatment via the Tower of London task. Acute resistance exercise facilitated Tower of London performances in terms of less total move scores, more total correct scores, and a longer total initial time compared with control and baseline. Our results expand the existing literature by demonstrating that resistance exercise has a positive effect on cognition and contributes to improved quality of planning, working memory, and inhibition aspects of executive function.