Effect of intra-session exercise sequence of an 8-week concurrent training program on the components of physical fitness in recreationally trained young adults

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to determine the effect of the intra-session exercise sequence of a concurrent training programme on the components of health-related physical fitness. Twenty-four healthy young adults were allocated into two different groups differing only in the exercise order to conduct an 8-week intra-session concurrent training programme consisting of three sessions of 60–90 minutes (180–270 min/week), with all-out running sprint intervals, back squat, and bench press endurance and resistance exercises (i.e., ET+RT and RT+ET). The 8-week intra-session concurrent training programme overall improved all the components of physical fitness regardless of the exercise sequence. However, ET + RT and RT + ET groups reported moderate and small improvements for squat jump (ET + RT: 3.82 cm [1.11 to 6.53 cm]; RT + ET: 0.31 cm [−1.72 to 2.33 cm]), countermovement jump (ET + RT: 3.76 cm [1.43 to 6.08 cm]; RT + ET: 2.07 cm [−0.03 to 4.17 cm]) and maximum oxygen uptake (ET + RT: 4.75 ml/kg/min [1.14 to 8.35 ml/kg/min]; RT + ET: 1.66 ml/kg/min [−0.89 to 4.21 ml/kg/min]), respectively. Therefore, greater lower-body power and cardiorespiratory fitness gains might be induced following the ET + RT sequence.

KEYWORDS:

• Resistance training
• endurance training
• high intensity interval training
• exercise order
• interference phenomenon

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all of the subjects.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work is related to the EDUSport Research Project (ref. PID2020-115600RB-C21) which has been supported by [MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033]. In addition, SARA is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education under grant [FPU19/00542]; Ministerio de Educaci?n, Cultura y Deporte</#funding-source; Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.