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. 2023 Jan 18:13:1095328.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1095328. eCollection 2022.

The effect of HIIT on body composition, cardiovascular fitness, psychological well-being, and executive function of overweight/obese female young adults

Linxuan Guo  1 , Jiaying Chen  1 , Wenxue Yuan  1
Affiliations

The effect of HIIT on body composition, cardiovascular fitness, psychological well-being, and executive function of overweight/obese female young adults

Linxuan Guo et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of a short-term HIIT program on the selected health-related parameters for overweight/obese young adult women in a university context.

Methods: A total of 48 participants were randomly divided into two groups. The exercise group (HIIT) received a HIIT intervention of aerobics for 4 weeks, while the control group (CON) received no training. Body composition including waist circumference (WC), body fat percentage (BF %), Cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max), the score of Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), and Stroop word-color test (SCWT) results were assessed before and after the intervention along with within- and between-group comparisons.

Results: All the indices were significantly improved in HIIT group (p < 0.01) after 4 weeks of intervention. No significant changes were found in CON. There were significant differences between HIIT and CON in cardiovascular fitness (p < 0.01), SDS (p < 0.01) and SCWT (p < 0.05) before and after 4 weeks. In addition, weekly measurements of HIIT effects showed significant changes (p < 0.01) from the second week in the variables of body composition, VO2max, SDS and SCWT when compared with the baseline and maintained the tendency till the end of program.

Conclusion: The short-term HIIT aerobics of the campus program conducted in a non-lab setting induced significant improvements in body composition, cardiovascular fitness, psychological well-being and executive function in overweight young female adults.

Keywords: HIIT; body composition; executive function; female young adults; psychological well-being.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A,B) Weekly measurement of body composition in the HIIT group during the four-week training (WC, waist circumference; BF %, body fat percentage). W, week; kg, kilogram; **p < 0.01.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Weekly measurement of maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max) in the HIIT group during the four-week training. W, week; **p < 0.01.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Weekly measurement of SDS scores in the HIIT group during the four-week training. SDS, Self-Rating Depression Scale; W, week; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Weekly measurement of SCWT in the HIIT group during the four-week training group. SCWT, Stroop color-word test; W, week; **p < 0.01.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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