The Effect of Combined Resistance and Endurance Training on Some Physical Fitness Factors in Young Men

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of an eight-week combined resistance and endurance training program on the body composition (total body water percentage, fat free body mass and body fat percentage) and aerobic power of young men. Fifty young men students with the age mean of 21.18±2.1, height mean of 176.34±4.1 and weight mean of 70.1±5.4 were randomly divided to five combined endurance- resistance (n=10), combined resistance-endurance (n=10), resistance (n=10), endurance (n=10) and control (n=10) groups. In three sessions (week 0, week 4 and week 8), their aerobic power and body composition were measured in order to obtain their maximum oxygen consumption, total body water percentage, fat free body mass and body fat percentage. Then, the training groups performed their training programs for eight weeks, three sessions per week. The training program of the resistance group included circular resistance. The endurance group performed running with 70-80% maximum heart rate for 20-26 min. The program of the combined endurance-resistance group was composed of doing endurance training first and resistance training next and that of the combined resistance-endurance group included performing resistance training first and endurance training next. The control group did not participate in any training program during the research period. The research data were analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with repeated measures along with dependent t test considering the Bonferroni's P correction for within group evaluation and one way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) along with Tukey’s post hoc test for between group evaluation ( > α 0/05). The results showed that eight weeks of endurance training, combined endurance-resistance training and combined resistance-endurance training significantly increased the maximum oxygen consumption (P