Combined endurance and resistance exercise training for physical and mental health in the academic workplace; significance for both employer and employee.

INTERVENTION: Brief name: Concurrent exercise training (CT) for physical and mental health in the academic workplace. Why: Full‐time desk‐based workers may be at greater risk of common mental disorders (CMD) and metabolic syndrome due to low levels of physical activity, or chronic stress. Considering the bidirectional relationship between physical activity and stress, it is clear that increasing physical activity through a concurrent resistance and endurance exercise training intervention (CT) could provide significant mental and physical health benefits to employees within the workplace. The academic workplace is unique in that academics have higher psychological strain and lower job satisfaction compared to other university staff, who already present with greater anxiety and depression than the general population. Considering the paucity of health research within academia, this high‐risk cohort lends itself to an investigation of the impact of CT on mental and physical health within the workplace. What, how and where and when: The CT intervention will involve both endurance and resistance training. Participants in the CT group will train for 1 h, three times per week, for 16‐weeks. Training will be conducted face to face in small groups (8‐10 participants) within climate‐controlled exercise facilities at either the UTS city or Moore Park campus’. Training sessions will involve: ‐ A 5 min warm‐up circuit at 50% working weight, and dynamic stretching, followed by resistance and endurance training. ‐ Resistance exercises including lunges, goblet squats, step ups and machine‐based leg press and leg curl for the lower body, and machine‐based chest press, shoulder press and cable pull down and cable row for the upper body. ‐ Endurance exercise conducted on treadmills, cycling and rowing ergometers, with equal duration spent in each endurance exercise modality. ‐ Static stretching of the primary muscle groups at the conclusion of each session.

Epistemonikos ID: 636fdff4e46f0f4b0d50d15a8dac63ea238ae487
First added on: Aug 24, 2024