Effect of 8-week resistance training on muscle strength and functional capacity in women with multiple sclerosis (MS)

Introduction and

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease that affects motor pathways and leads to muscle weakness and muscle fatigue. Therefore, the purpose of this research was effects of 8 weeks resistance training on muscle strength and functional capacity in women with multiple sclerosis.

Sixteen people of the women referred to the Kurdistan MS Society participated in present study and randomly divided to experimental (n=8) and control (n=8) groups.The experimental group participated in a resistance training program for 8 weeks, 3 times/week with 40-70% of 1RM.The control group did not perform any training. Two days before andafter training protocol, muscle strength and functional capacity were evaluated. For data analysis, t-tests were used (p=0.05).

Independent t-test showed that there were a significant difference in the post-test between the experimental group and control in the strength leg press (p=0.011), bench press(p=0.004), test 6 minutes walk (p=0.011), test 10 m walking (p = 0.009) and Timed Up and Go test (p=0.006) in the post-test. While there were no significant difference in above factors in thepre-test (respectively; p=0.46, p=0.73, p=0.76, p=0.60 and p=0.96).

Resistance training causes a significant increase of leg and bench press strength and distance walking. It, therefore, was increased the speed of walking. Resistance training was tolerated by the patients and do not have the harmful effect on the exacerbation of trend this disease.