The Women’s Muscle Power Project
The Women’s Muscle Power Project: Neuromuscular adaptations to complex power training in healthy, middle-aged women
Gastvortrag von Prof. Dr. Heather Smith von der Universität Auckland:
- Donnerstag, 20.09.2018
- 15 Uhr
- Raum 318 in der Zentralbibliothek der Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln
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Heather Smith is an Associate Professor in Exercise Physiology in the Department of Exercise Sciences at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Her research is about the muscles that move us. Her work spans from the biology of the regulation of skeletal muscle mass to the structural and functional changes within the human body that occur with habitual physical exercise or inactivity. The eventual aim of her research is to specify, justify and evaluate interventions to ensure sufficient muscle mass and function for movement and metabolic health.
In this talk, Prof Smith will discuss the drivers behind and findings from ‘The Women’s Muscle Power Project’ - an exercise trial designed to improve lower body muscular power in healthy, pre- and post-menopausal, middle-aged women. Her research team administered and evaluated an array of neuromuscular adaptations to the uniquely applied 16 week complex power training programme consisting of thrice weekly sessions of a high volume of free-moving, multi-joint exercises with low to moderate loads performed ‘explosively’. While the findings included improvements in functional power, less expected were the gains observed in maximal dynamic and isometric strength, but not the rate of force development. Whether or not menopausal status and therefore endogenous estrogen levels had any influence on the adaptations to training will also be revealed.