Broad‐spectrum health improvements with one year of soccer training in inactive mildly hypertensive middle‐aged women

Abstract

The study tested the hypothesis that long-term soccer training has positive impact on cardiovascular profile, body composition, bone health, and physical capacity in inactive, pre-menopausal women with mild hypertension. The study applied a randomized controlled design in which physically inactive middle-aged women were separated into a soccer training group (n=19; SOC) and a control group (n=12; CON). SOC performed 128±29 (±SD) one-h small-sided soccer training sessions over one year. Blood pressure, body composition, blood lipid profile, and fitness level were determined pre- and post-intervention. Over one year, mean arterial pressure decreased more in SOC than in CON (-5±7 vs +4±5 mmHg; P<.05). Total-body fat mass decreased more (P<.05) in SOC than in CON (-2.5±2.5 vs +0.6±3.2 kg; P<.05), while the change scores for lean body mass were not significantly different in SOC (2.6±2.7 kg) compared to CON (1.1±1.9 kg, P=.09). Over one year, change scores in whole-body bone mineral density (0.004±0.032 vs -0.019±0.026 g·cm ) as well as bone mineral content (30±70 vs -39±113 g) were positive in SOC compared to CON (P<.05). Post-intervention plasma triglycerides decreased more (-0.1±0.7 vs +0.2±0.2 mmol·L ) and HDL cholesterol increased more (0.2±0.7 vs -0.2±0.2 mmol·L ) in SOC than in CON (P<.05). Yo-Yo intermittent endurance level 1 (122±105 vs 2±21%) and 20-m sprint performance (6±6 vs -1±2%) increased more (P<.05) in SOC than in CON. In conclusion, long-term soccer training resulted in broad-spectrum improvements in the health profile of untrained, pre-menopausal women with mild hypertension, including cardiovascular, metabolic, and musculo-skeletal benefits.

Recreational football is medicine against non‐communicable diseases: A systematic review

“…Results of short periods of RF intervention (12 to 16 weeks) revealed that, generally, blood pressure decreases more in healthy or mild‐to‐moderate arterial hypertensive men and women when compared to a control group. Similar evidence can be found ≥1‐year interventions . These responses may be caused by a reduction in sympathetic tone and an increase in parasympathetic activity as verified by heart rate variability and heart rate measurements .…”

“…In the case of short period interventions, results seem to suggest that a short period of RF intervention can lead to meaningful decreases in blood pressure (5‐12 mm Hg) in healthy and mild‐to‐moderate hypertensive men and women . Longer interventions (one year or more) of RF training were associated with decreases of 5 mm Hg in mean arterial pressure of mild hypertensive women, while no changes were found in a control group . Furthermore, despite a decrease in the volume of training completed by healthy male participants after an initial 12‐week period, decreases in systolic and diastolic blood pressure of 8 and 3 mm Hg, respectively, were still observed .…”

“…The majority of the studies were conducted as RCT (n = 16); however, some of them were cross‐sectional (n = 4) and one of the studies was a controlled training study without randomization . The period of RCT was between 12 weeks and 12 and 16 months . Usually, the RCT compared a football intervention against a passive control group (n = 8).…”

“…The unique pathology used as inclusion criterion during RCT was mild-to-moderate hypertension (n = 4). [17][18][19][20] The majority of the studies were conducted in adult untrained participants (n = 14); however, there were studies conducted on youth (<18 years old) (n = 3) and elderly (>65 years old) (n = 3) populations. Men (n = 12), women (n = 6), and both studied at the same time (n = 2) were analyzed across the studies.…”

The Yo-Yo Intermittent Tests: A Systematic Review and Structured Compendium of Test Results

“…Computation of YYIE1 test global means, SDs and quantiles (Figure 5) involved 12 studies/subgroups reporting on 770 participants (median age = 21.3 years, IQR = 18.8–44.3 years) (Metaxas et al, 2005; Castagna et al, 2006a; Lategan et al, 2011; Rowan et al, 2012; Deliceoglu, 2013; Mohr et al, 2014; Akashi et al, 2015; Fløtum et al, 2016; Julian et al, 2017; Krustrup et al, 2017; Seidelin et al, 2017). …”