Researchers found that weight training during weight regain has a positive effect on health, which can reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease and other diseases. Participants maintained improvements acquired through weight loss in cardiorespiratory fitness, body fat percentage, systolic blood pressure and other factors. In addition, participants significantly increased strength and lean body mass. However, they did not maintain reductions in visceral abdominal fat: the fat deposited around internal organs.

This study furthers research completed earlier this year, in which MU researchers found that participation in aerobic exercise while regaining weight counters many of the risk factors associated with chronic diseases. These studies are some of the first to consider the effects of exercise on people's health who regain weight they recently lost.

The study, "The Effects of Resistance Training on Metabolic Health with Weight Regain," was published this year in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension. Researchers from the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology (part of the College of Human Environmental Sciences, the School of Medicine and the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources) completed the study in conjunction with MU scientists in the Department of Internal Medicine, the Department of Medical Pharmacology and Physiology, and the Harry S. Truman VA Memorial Hospital.

Source: University of Missouri-Columbia