Resistance Exercise in Individuals With and Without Cardiovascular Disease

Health and Fitness Benefits of Resistance Training

Although resistance training has long been accepted as a means for developing and maintaining muscular strength, endurance, power, and muscle mass (hypertrophy),^{1 2} its beneficial relationship to health factors and chronic disease has been recognized only recently.^{3 4 5} Prior to 1990, resistance training was not a part of the recommended guidelines for exercise training and rehabilitation for either the American Heart Association or the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). In 1990, the ACSM first recognized resistance training as a significant component of a comprehensive fitness program for healthy adults of all ages.⁶

Both aerobic endurance exercise and resistance training can promote substantial benefits in physical fitness and health-related factors.^{3 5} Table 1⇓ summarizes these benefits and attempts to weigh them according to the current literature.³ Although both training modalities elicit benefits in most of the variables listed, the estimated weightings (ie, in terms of physiological benefits) are often substantially different. Aerobic endurance training weighs higher in the development of maximum oxygen uptake (V̇o₂max) and associated cardiopulmonary variables, and it more effectively modifies cardiovascular risk factors associated with the development of coronary artery disease. Resistance training offers greater development of muscular strength, endurance, and mass. It also assists in the …