Acute Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Muscle Strength and Power in Trained Male Individuals: A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis

Abstract

Background Concurrent training can be an effective and time-efficient method to improve both muscle strength and aerobic capacity. A major challenge with concurrent training is how to adequately combine and sequence strength exercise and aerobic exercise to avoid interference effects. This is particularly relevant for athletes. Objective We aimed to examine the acute effects of aerobic exercise on subsequent measures of muscle strength and power in trained male individuals. Design We performed a systematic review with meta-analysis. Data Sources Systematic literature searches in the electronic databases PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were conducted up to July 2021. Eligibility Criteria for Selecting Studies Studies were included that applied a within-group repeated-measures design and examined the acute effects of aerobic exercise (i.e., running, cycling exercise) on subsequent measures of lower limb muscle strength (e.g., maximal isometric force of the knee extensors) and/or proxies of lower limb muscle power (e.g., countermovement jump height) in trained individuals. Results Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Aerobic exercise resulted in moderate declines in muscle strength (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.79; p = 0.003). Low-intensity aerobic exercise did not moderate effects on muscle strength (SMD = 0.65; p = 0.157) while moderate-to-high intensity aerobic exercise resulted in moderate declines in muscle strength (SMD = 0.65; p = 0.020). However, the difference between subgroups was not statistically significant (p = 0.979). Regarding aerobic exercise duration, large declines in muscle strength were found after > 30 min (SMD = 1.02; p = 0.049) while ≤ 30 min of aerobic exercise induced moderate declines in muscle strength (SMD = 0.59; p = 0.013). The subgroup difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.204). Cycling exercise resulted in significantly larger decrements in muscle strength (SMD = 0.79; p = 0.002) compared with running (SMD = 0.28; p = 0.035). The difference between subgroups was statistically significant (p < 0.0001). For muscle power, aerobic exercise did not result in any statistically significant changes (SMD = 0.04; p = 0.846). Conclusions Aerobic exercise induced moderate declines in measures of muscle strength with no statistically significant effects on proxies of muscle power in trained male individuals. It appears that higher compared with lower intensity as well as longer compared with shorter aerobic exercise duration exacerbate acute declines in muscle strength. Our results provide evidence for acute interference effects when aerobic exercies is performed before strength exercises. These findings may help practitioners to better prescribe single training sessions, particularly if environmental and/or infrastructural reasons (e.g., availability of training facilities) do not allow the application of strength training before aerobic exercise.

Selective Effect of Different High-Intensity Running Protocols on Resistance Training Performance

“…After warming up, subjects completed a standard incremental loading test to estimate their 1RM strength during the free-weight parallel back-squat exercise. Briefly, the initial external load was set at 20 kg and was progressively increased in 20kg increments when the mean velocity (MV) was greater than 0.75 m•s 21 and increased in 10-kg increments when the MV ranged from 0.75 to 0.60 m•s 21 . The test finished when the MV was less than 0.60 m•s 21 .…”

“…A recent review of Vechin et al (37) indicates that long (intensity: ;90-110% of maximal aerobic velocity; duration .60 seconds) and short (intensity: ;110-130% of maximal aerobic velocity; duration ,60 seconds) HIIT protocols performed before RT could compromise muscle strength gains, but very intense HIIT protocols (e.g., sprint interval training [SIT]; intensity: .170% of maximal aerobic velocity; duration: 30-45 seconds) should minimize this interference effect because it presumably induces comparable adaptations to moderate-to heavy-intensity RT. In consensus with the updated model of Vechin et al (37), the meta-analysis from Markov et al (21) demonstrated that higher intensity and longer endurance exercise duration exacerbate acute declines in the strength capacity of the involved muscles. However, to our knowledge, no study has examined the impact of different highintensity running protocols on muscle strength implementing very brief rest intervals (#15 minutes) between the endurance and resistance exercise bouts.…”

“…Endurance and resistance stimuli are essential elements of training programs designed to improve athletic performance or health (2,36). Concurrent training (CT) combines endurance and resistance stimuli, being effective and time-efficient to improve cardiorespiratory fitness and muscular strength (21,34). Many individuals manifest a lack of time to participate in structured training programs (14) and, therefore, they inevitably need to perform both exercise modalities within the same training session.…”

The effects of low-volume combined training on health-related physical fitness outcomes in active young adults: A controlled clinical trial

“… 6 Another advantage of adding CT in the training routine is to be more effective in reducing mortality from all causes, than doing only RS or AT alone. 13 This strategy also allows a reduction of the total training time spent in performing the RT and AT in a separate way, 14 without affecting chronic adaptations to exercise. 5 , 6 …”

Effects of 6 weeks of low-volume combined training on muscle power, muscular strength, and aerobic power in active young adults.

“…Despite these advantages for PF, the training sessions can be very long (i.e., > 60 min) which can be considered a limitation of this strategy [8,9]. However, it allows a reduction in total time spent on performing RT and AT in separate ways [10], without affecting chronic adaptations to training [5,7].…”