Episode 71: How Do I Lower Barriers to Exercise?

This week's article is a reivew of minimal dose resistance exercise programs among the general population from the article "Resistance exercise minimal dose strategies for increasing muscle strength in the general population: an overview." Roughly 80% of the population does not meet current weeky resistance exercise minimum guidelines with about 58% of people not participating in resistance training at all. Therefore, minimal dose resistance training programs could be a potential gateway into meeting current guidelines, or at least provide some stimulus for adaptation. Five different programs are reviewed: weekend warrior, single set resistance exercise, exercise snacks, practicing the strength test, and eccentric minimal dose. Weekend warrior programs resistance train once per week, single set programs perform a single set of various exercises a few times per week, and exercise snacks are frequently implemented multiple times every day and can be as short as 9 minutes per day of exercise. Practicing the strength test involves training sets of 1 rep at a maximal intensity of either eccentric and concentric movements or maximal isometrics. Eccentric minimal dose programs accentuate the eccentric phase of lifting, and both of these last two programs are less commonly applied to the general population. All programs have shown to benefit muscle strength and hypertrophy more than no exercise, and they are generally easy to adhere to. In particular, exercise snacks were found to have a 97% adherence when done once for 9 minutes per day, with an 81% adherence when performing 9 minute sessions three times per day for a total of 27 minutes per day. These programs improve function in older adult populations, decrease reported daytime sleepiness, and decrease pain in populations with chronic neck pain. Clinically, this is likely the most common exercise prescription to give patients. Knowledge of minimal effective dosage of resistance training is important to solidly understand as a clinician because it is very likely your patients are not already meeting resistance training minimum guidelines, and prescribing optimal dosage or even these minimum guidelines will likely result in your patients not adhering to their program with poor adherence leading to worse outcomes. Offer options between these five different minimal effective dose programs to best fit the needs of the patient before you. The abstract can be found here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38509414/ As always, if you enjoy what you hear, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and on Instagram @readingrehabpod.  If you have any article recommendations be sure to send them our way!