Abstract
Guidelines published by the American College of Sports Medicine indicate that resistive training should be an integral part of an adult fitness program. Most adults will find it difficult to train resistively regularly unless they train in their own homes using simple, inexpensive equipment. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which participation in a 12-week resistive training program using the Body Bar, a simple, inexpensive resistive training device, in the home improves dynamic and absolute strength of middle-age women compared to similar women engaged in a walking program. A pretest-midtest-posttest design was employed with subjects randomly assigned to either a resistive (n = 30) or a walking (control) group (n = 30). All subjects were tested on measures of dynamic and absolute strength. Resistive trainers performed significantly better than the controls across the 12-week training period on all strength variables even with statistical control for potential confounders. Number of workouts performed and average intensity of each workout were both significant predictors of strength improvements among the resistive trainers.