Abstract
Purpose:
Epidemiological data show that physical activity participation is lowest in minority women, particularly in Latinas. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of hypertrophy (HT) and power training (PT) used concomitantly with evaluative (EC) or neutral conditioning (NC) on exercise adherence, lean body mass, and psychosocial variables in Latina women. EC is a behavioral method using paired stimuli to develop and strengthen associations in memory.
Methods:
142 Latina women (mean ± SD, age 36.8±15.9 yrs.) were randomly assigned to HT or PT and then further stratified into EC or NC.
Results:
There was a significant training x conditioning interaction for exercise adherence (Fig. 1). For HT, the EC group demonstrated a significantly longer time spent training than the NC group, (
F
1, 184
= 11.874,
P
< 0.001,η
p
2
= .061). For PT, there was no significant difference between EC and NC groups in time spent training. Additionally, a significant time x condition interaction was found for lean body mass, (
F
1, 76 = 5.138,
P
< 0.05,η
p
2
= .063). A significant time x condition interaction was also observed for exercise self-efficacy (
p
<0.05). For the EC condition, exercise self-efficacy significantly increased from pretest to post-test, (
F
1, 52
= 6.536,
P
< .05, η
p
2
= .112).
Conclusion:
Both training modality and EC can impact exercise adherence in Latina women.
Figure 1. Exercise adherence using hypertrophy and power training and evaluative or neutral conditioning. *Significantly greater than neutral conditioning during hypertrophy training,
p
< 0.01. **
p
< 0.001.