Doing physical exercise is more effective for delaying the loss of physical force, muscular mass and cardiovascular resistance associated with ageing. The results of a PhD thesis undertaken at the Tudela Campus of the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) by researcher Eduardo Lusa Cadore, constitute progress in this area of prescribing physical exercise for elderly persons in order to improve their health and enhance their quality of life. In concrete, it suggests that the elderly should first and foremost do strength training sessions and, subsequently, improve their cardiovascular resistance, given that “undertaking both kinds of exercise at the same time, activating the same muscular group, may interfere negatively in improving strength”.
The PhD, “Strength and resistance training amongst elderly persons” by Eduardo Lusa Cadore, researcher at the Universidad Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), was directed by doctors Mikel Izquierdo Redín, of the UPNA, and Luis F. Kruel, of the mentioned Brazilian university, and received cum laude distinction by unanimous decision.
In his research, undertaken at the Department of Health Sciences on the Tudela Campus, he examined the effects amongst the elderly of combined strength and cardiovascular resistance training. “Taking into account that ageing is associated with loss of strength and cardiovascular resistance, we observed that combined training appears to be the most effective action for preventing the effects of ageing on functional capacity and the quality of life”, explained Eduardo Lusa Cadore.
According to the results of the research, the cardiovascular resistance exercises carried out at the same time as that of strength training “can interfere negatively in enhancing strength amongst elderly men when the same muscular group is activated in the two types of exercise”. In order to optimise enhancement in strength the training “should be planned in such a way that the strength training be carried out before the cardiovascular resistance exercises”.
Author and co-author of articles in various publications, Eduardo Lusa Cadore has carried out most of his studies on the physical training of elderly people. He obtained his Master’s and PhD degrees in Human Movement Sciences from the Universidad Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and undertook his PhD in Health Sciences at the UPNA, where he had a research stay at the Biomechanics and Physiology of Human Movement laboratory which this Navarre university has at its Campus in Tudela.
* Elhuyar translation, published in www.basqueresearch.com