Original articleEffects of Circuit Resistance Training on Fitness Attributes and Upper-Extremity Pain in Middle-Aged Men With Paraplegia
Section snippets
Participants
Seven healthy men between 39 and 58 years old with motor-complete (American Spinal Injury Association grades A or B) paraplegia averaging ± standard deviation 13.1±6.6 years at the T5 to T12 levels volunteered to undergo 16 weeks of CRT. These subjects were selected because people with these injury levels exhibit competent and relatively homogenous chronotropic responses to physical activity.32 Study participants were recruited from a pool of volunteers who reported mild to moderate upper-limb
Fitness
All subjects completed training without injury, and 94% of scheduled training sessions were completed. Peak Vo2 values increased from 1.64±0.45 to 1.81±0.54L/min after training (P=.01). Significant increases in strength were observed between pretraining and posttraining for all maneuvers (table 1) with increases ranging from 38.6% to 59.7% (all P<.001). The trends in strength gains reflect consistent gains in strength across the 16-week training period (fig 1). The effects of training on
Discussion
The key finding of the study is that middle-aged men who underwent 16 weeks of CRT increased their endurance, strength, and anaerobic power while decreasing their self-reported shoulder pain. We have previously reported that CRT performed by younger men with paraplegia enhanced both muscle strength and cardiorespiratory endurance35 and in a separate study significantly reduced their lipid-related cardiovascular disease risk.44 One of the anecdotal observations communicated by participants in
Conclusions
Exercise conditioning with CRT rapidly improves the muscle strength, endurance, and anaerobic power of middle-aged men with paraplegia while significantly reducing shoulder pain. Training with CRT enhances multiple fitness attributes, which provides an economy of training that is superior to either endurance or resistance training alone.
Acknowledgment
We acknowledge the important methodologic contributions of John E. Lewis, PhD.
References (54)
- et al.
Long-term spinal cord injury: functional changes over time
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
(1993) - et al.
Are chronic spinal cord injured patients (SCIP) prone to premature aging?
Med Hypotheses
(1983) - et al.
Aging with spinal cord injury
Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am
(2005) - et al.
Aging with spinal cord injury: changes in selected health indices and life satisfaction
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
(2004) - et al.
Aging with a spinal cord injury: factors associated with the need for more help with activities of daily living
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
(2004) - et al.
Shoulder pain in wheelchair users with tetraplegia and paraplegia
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
(1999) - et al.
The relation of shoulder pain and range-of-motion problems to functional limitations, disability, and perceived health of men with spinal cord injury: a multifaceted longitudinal study
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
(2000) - et al.
Metabolic changes in persons after spinal cord injury
Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am
(2000) - et al.
Relation between muscular strength and cardiorespiratory fitness in people with thoracic-level paraplegia
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
(2005) Cardiovascular fitness after spinal cord injuries
Exercise reconditioning of the heart and peripheral circulation after spinal cord injury
Top Spinal Cord Inj Rehabil
Why exercise in paraplegia?
Br J Sports Med
Physical activity for people with a disability: a conceptual model
Sports Med
The spectrum of physical activity, cardiovascular disease and health: an epidemiologic perspective
Am J Epidemiol
A randomized, controlled trial of methylprednisolone or naloxone in the treatment of acute spinal-cord injuryResults of the Second National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study
N Engl J Med
Relationship of impairment and functional ability to habitual activity and fitness following spinal cord injury
Int J Rehabil Res
Lipid and lipoprotein profiles relate to peak aerobic power in spinal cord injured men
Med Sci Sports Exerc
Research and interpretation perspectives on aging related physical morbidity with spinal cord injury and brief review of systems
NeuroRehabilitation
Wheelchair user’s shoulder?Shoulder pain in patients with spinal cord lesions
Scand J Rehabil Med
Prevalence and impact of wrist and shoulder pain in patients with spinal cord injury
J Spinal Cord Med
Shoulder imaging abnormalities in individuals with paraplegia
J Rehabil Res Dev
Range of motion and stroke frequency differences between manual wheelchair propulsion and pushrim-activated power-assisted wheelchair propulsion
J Spinal Cord Med
The weight-bearing shoulderThe impingement syndrome in paraplegics
J Bone Joint Surg Am
Late complications of the weight-bearing upper extremity in the paraplegic patient
Clin Orthop Relat Res
Shoulder pain and functional disability in spinal cord injury patients
Clin Orthop Relat Res
Shoulder pain: a comparison of wheelchair athletes and nonathletic wheelchair users
Med Sci Sports Exerc
The Stockholm spinal cord injury study: 1. Medical problems in a regional SCI population
Paraplegia
Cited by (137)
Post-processing Peak Oxygen Uptake Data Obtained During Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing in Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury: A Scoping Review and Analysis of Different Post-processing Strategies
2023, Archives of Physical Medicine and RehabilitationExercise to mitigate cardiometabolic disorders after spinal cord injury
2022, Current Opinion in PharmacologySociodemographic characteristics associated with physical activity barrier perception among manual wheelchair users
2021, Disability and Health JournalCitation Excerpt :Lower extremity impairments leading to manual wheelchair use are a common disability4 and force individuals to rely on theirupper-extremities for activities of daily living. Morbidity and physical deconditioning must be prevented or limited to preserve independence, social functioning and quality of life.5 Hence, it is urgent to understand what factors may potentially restrict manual wheelchair users (MWCUs) to participate in physical activities and subsequently, to develop strategies to mitigate these restrictions.
Robotic locomotor training in a low-resource setting: a randomized pilot and feasibility trial
2023, Disability and RehabilitationEffect of 12-week sports intervention programme on physical fitness and sports performance in individuals with spinal cord injury
2023, Indian Journal of Physiology and PharmacologyModels of care for musculoskeletal shoulder pain in spinal cord injury: A scoping review
2023, Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine
Supported by the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the author(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.