Associations of various exercise types with health-related physical fitness: Focus on physical fitness age

Abstract

The health-related physical fitness status of habitual exercisers with different exercise types has not been adequately described previously. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the various benefits in health-related physical fitness associated with participation in various exercises. The study was a cross-sectional study on 164 Japanese adult males (age: 45-80 years), who were classified into seven groups according to their most frequently practiced exercise: non-exercisers (n = 48), walking (n = 38), jogging (n = 23), rhythm calisthenics (n = 13), bowling (n = 20), tennis (n = 13), and cycling (n = 9). Anthropometric and health-related physical fitness data were measured, and exercise habit was investigated using a questionnaire survey. Physical fitness age (PFA) was estimated in all study participants. Compared to 48 non-exercisers, joggers obviously had superior cardiorespiratory endurance (maximal oxygen uptake: 45.5 ± 1.1 mL/kg/min). Tennis players showed better flexibility (trunk flexion: 6.8 ± 2.5 cm), agility (side-to-side stepping: 39.8 ± 1.6 reps), balance (one-legged stand with eyes closed: 24.9 ± 3.3 s), and lower-limb strength (vertical jump: 38.9 ± 1.6 cm). The difference between chronological age and PFA was approximately 13 years in joggers, 10 years in tennis players, and 5 years in rhythm calisthenics practitioners, all of which were significantly better when compared to the difference in non-exercisers. Various exercises appeared to confer different advantages on health-related physical fitness status. Exercise type with different skills was considered as a factor to maintain or promote physical fitness for habitual exercisers, especially older individuals.

Cognitive and physical age gaps in relation to mild cognitive impairment and behavioral phenotypes

“…Apart from cognitive age-gaps, another ability-based age-gap metric can be estimated using physical tness scores. There have been a handful of studies [5][6][7][8][9] that attempted to estimate physical ages of individual participants using physical tness test scores. Among them, only two [6,8] went on to compute and study physical age-gaps in relation to other outcomes.…”

“…There have been a handful of studies [5][6][7][8][9] that attempted to estimate physical ages of individual participants using physical tness test scores. Among them, only two [6,8] went on to compute and study physical age-gaps in relation to other outcomes. Unlike the recent brain age studies that utilized machine learning paradigms involving independent training and testing datasets, these physical age studies did not partition their data into independent training and testing samples.…”

Cognitive and physical age-gaps in relation to mild cognitive impairment and behavioral phenotypes

“…There have been a handful of studies [5][6][7][8][9] that attempted to estimate physical ages of individual participants using physical tness test scores. Among them, only two 5,8 went on to compute and study physical age-gaps in relation to other outcomes. Unlike the recent brain age studies that utilized machine learning paradigms involving independent training and testing datasets, these physical age studies did not partition their data into independent training and testing samples.…”

“…Apart from cognitive age-gaps, another ability-based age-gap metric can be estimated using physical tness scores. There have been a handful of studies [5][6][7][8][9] that attempted to estimate physical ages of individual participants using physical tness test scores. Among them, only two 5,8 went on to compute and study physical age-gaps in relation to other outcomes.…”

“…This circularity in model-tting and prediction is likely to produce over tted models that generalize poorly to unseen subjects 10 . In one study 5 , participants' physical ages were estimated using formulae that were published more than two decades ago. Such formulae were not adequately validated beyond the dataset it was conceived from; it is unclear if these formulae can adequately generalize across populations and time.…”