Physical activity, health and exercise

Effects of 8 week endurance and resistance training programmes on cardiovascular stress

responses, life stress and coping.

ABSTRACT
This study tested the effect of 8week endurance and resistance training programmes on
cardiovascular stress responses, life stress, and coping. Fiftytwo untrained but healthy female
students were randomised to an 8 week endurance training, an 8 week resistance training, or a
wait list control group. Before and after the training intervention, we assessed the groups’
cardiorespiratory fitness VO2 max test, selfreported life stress, coping strategies and
cardiovascular reactivity to and recovery from a standardised laboratory stressor. Both endurance
and resistance training programmes caused physiological adaptation in terms of increased VO2
max after the intervention. For stress and coping parameters, participants in the training groups
improved cardiovascular recovery from stress and reported having less stress in their everyday life
after the intervention than participants in the control group, while the two training groups did not
differ from each other. We did not find any significant differences in heart rate reactivity and coping
strategies between the study groups. These results partly support that exercise training has
stressreducing benefits regardless of the type of exercise. Both endurance and resistance exercise
activities may be effectively used to improve stress regulation competence while having less
impact on changing specific coping strategies.

ARTICLE HISTORY
KEYWORDS
Physical activity; exercise; sport; stress; coping

Regular physical activity and exercise have been found to prevent stressrelated diseases and
strengthen mental health.
These benefits are due to several factors, including a preventive effect when ever exercise
contributes to lowered stress perceptions, and a coping promoting effect when exercise helps to
endorse adaptive coping behaviours.
Exercise training has also been identified as a beneficial strategy to buffer stress related
physiological reactions with physically active individuals typically showing lower cortisol increase,
lower cardiovascular reactivity and more rapid cardiovascular recovery to laboratory stressors
when compared to their less active counterparts.
Notably, the above advantages have been mostly reported on endurance exercise training e.g.,
running, biking; with only a few studies looking at effects of resistance exercise training weight
lifting. Of the few studies that directly compared the two, and colleagues observed similar effects
on cardiovascular stress reactivity, whereas and colleagues found stronger effects in the
endurancet rained group.Thus, evidence of whether or not resistance training has the same
psychophysiological benefits as endurance training is still unclear. This study tested the effects of
endurance and resistance training programmes on cardiovascular stressresponses, life stress
perceptions and coping.On the physiological level, researchers have proposed that regular
exercise, both endurance and resistance, leads to physiological adaptations which may contribute
to reduced physiological reactions to stressors in general. Endurance training enhances aerobic
capacity and induces adaptations that increase ventricular filling and decrease myocardial work,
thereby improving cardiac performance i.e., enhanced stroke volume.This enables submaximal
workloads to be negotiated with greater efficiency e.g., at a lower heart rate and blood pressure,
which may generalise from ergogenic to psychogenic challenges. Similar to endurance training,
resistance training produces adaptations in the cardiovascular system that lower bloodpressure,
2004 and cause a more rapid return of heart rate to baseline levels following physical exercise,
even though aerobic capacity does not increase as much. On the psychological level, the role of
physical exercise as a factor that reduces selfreported stress experience is well documented, but
there is a dearth of research on whether exercise training also changes coping. Coping refers to
the ‘conscious volitional efforts to regulate emotion, cognition, behaviour, physiology, and the
environment in response to stressful events or circumstances’, generally categorised as
engagement and disengagement coping.
Engagement coping is aimed at dealing with the stressor or related emotions and includes
strategies such as active coping, support seeking and cognitive restructuring,while disengagement
coping is aimed at escaping the stressor or related emotions and comprises strategies such as
behavioural disengagement, substance use and denial.
Coping strategies are considered adaptive if they improve functioning in a given situation and
maladaptive if they result in maintained or increased levels of strain and distress. Researchers
have proposed that physical activity and exercise can promote specific coping strategies. For
example, Kimand McKenzie found that physical activity promoted problemfocused coping and Al
Sudani and Budzynska reported that physical activity correlated with taskoriented coping and
social diversion.
Other researchers found that physical activity itself has been described as a coping strategy yet
individuals who endorsed physical activity as a means of coping also tended to endorse other
coping behaviours.
The implication is that the use of some coping strategies may change in response to enhanced
physical activity and exercise. However, the above studies were limited by selfreported levels of
physical activity, with no objective measurement or manipulation of actual physical activity
behaviour. Also, the studies asked participants about the level of physical activity in general,
without differentiating between endurance and resistance exercise activities.

The aim of this study was twofold.

First, we investigated the effect of 8 week endurance and resistance training programmes on
cardiovascular stress reactivity and recovery by including three female groups differing in the type
of training endurance trained participants, resistance trained participants and untrained controls.
Second, we examined the effect of thet wo training programmes on life stress perceptions and
coping strategies.
The endurance training consisted of low and high impact aerobic dance, which is an effective
method to increase physical endurance, and the resistance training comprised a progressive
weightlifting programme, which is an effective intervention to improve physical strength.

We chose the 8 week period because it had been found that 6 to 8 weeks of either training were
enough to both increase aerobic capacity and strength and improve wellbeing and cardiovascular
adaptation to psychological stressor Delextrat.

We hypothesised that both endurance and resistance trained participants would show lower
cardiovascular stress reactivity to and more rapid recovery from psychological stressor, and less
life stress, as a consequence of the training.
Regarding coping strategies, we used an exploratory ratherthan confirmatory approach, as the
evidence on physical activity and coping is unclear.
On the one hand, physical activity itself has been described as a coping strategy.
On the other hand, physical activity has also promoted other coping behaviours and thus at least
some coping strategies could be used more or less frequently in response to the exercise training
programmes.An additional aim of this study was to test the above hypotheses with a female
sample.
The majority of studies on physical activity and stress were conducted with men, while female
samples are currently under represented.
However, findings from male samples cannot be automatically generalised to female population, as
gender strongly affects physiological and psychological stress response. For example, Kelly found
that women reported greater psychological stress than men on a standardised stress test, although
both groups showed similar physiological stress responses cortisol and heart rate reactivity.
Women are on average less physically active than men but more likely than mento use exercise as
a way of coping with stress.
More research on physical activity, stress and coping is thus needed with female samples. In sum,
the current study contributes to the literature by comparing the effects of endurance and resistance
training programmes on cardiovascular stress responses, life stress perceptions and coping in a
sample of female participants.

Methods
Participants were 65 female students
age 21.02 years,
SD1.65 recruited in cooperation with the university leisure sports centre for women.
Inclusion criteria were: essentially healthy not suffering from any known somatic or psychiatric
disease, not having performed any regular exercise trainingduring the last year and studying full
time.
General exclusion criteria were medication intake, substance abuse and smoking.The study was
approved by the first author’s university reviewboard. Before entering the study, all participants
gave written informed consent and were informed about their right to discontinue participation at
any time.

Procedure
Using a computer generated list of random numbers MicrosoftExcel; participants were randomised
to one of the three study groups: an 8 week endurance training group EG, an 8 week resistance
training group RG and a waitlist control group WCG; receiving no training intervention.
One week prior to pretest and after the training intervention posttest, all participants completed
individual testing sessions that comprised, in this order, psychological questionnaires on stress and
coping strategies, a stress test with assessment of cardiovascular stress responses, assessment
of body mass index BMI and a 2km UKK walk test for assessing cardiorespiratory fitness.
The pretest and posttest assessments were identical.
Exercise training intervention
Both exercise training groups had three 60min training sessions per week 24 sessions in total, all
of which were supervised in a group format and led by an experienced fitness coach. We used two
fitness coaches, one led all endurance training sessions and the other one led all resistance
training sessions. Each training session started with a 7min warmup,followed with a standardised
endurance EG or resistance RG1700. exercise protocol 45 min and ended with an 8min stretching
phase to cool down. The exercise protocols for both training groups are in the Appendix.
Participants in the endurancet raining group performed a combination of low and high impact
aerobic dance at a tempo of 130–148 beats per minute BPM in the first 4 weeks and progressed to
high impact aerobic dance at a tempo of 148–160 BPM in the second4 weeks.
in the resistance training group performed a full body programme with eight exercises per session
bench press, wide grip pulldown behind the neck, lying leg curl, dumbbell biceps curl, leg
extension, dumbbell side lateral raise, triceps bench dips and situps.

The training programme comprised three to five sets of eight to 12 repetitions, with a 2min
recovery phase between the sets, and was progressive, as the load started by 40% of the one
repetition maximum 1RM and was continually increased by10% in the third, fifth and seventh
training week. The 1RM test was conducted before the training intervention and recalculated after
4 weeks of the intervention.

Psychological questionnaires
Two well validated, widely used questionnaires were administered. First, we used the one
dimensional Perceived Stress Scale PSS to measure the frequency with which participants found
their lives unpredictable, uncontrollable and overloading during the last month, and themselves not
able to cope with it e.g., “How often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that
you had to do?”.

The PSS consists of 10 items that are answered on a 5 point Likert scale from 1 never to 5 very
often. Prior research has supported the reliability and validity of the PSS for student and employee
samples across different cultures .

In the present study, Cronbach’s alphas were good, in the pretest and the posttest, respectively.
Second, we administered the Coping Orientation for Problem Experiences inventory COPE to
assess participants’coping strategies that they had been using during the last month.

The COPE consists of 60 items that assess 15 different coping strategies: positive reinterpretation
and growth, mental disengagement, focus on and venting of emotions, use of instrumental social
support, active coping, denial, religious coping, humour, behavioural disengagement, restraint, use
of emotional social support, substance use, acceptance, suppression of competing activities and
planning. Participants responded to the COPE using a 4 point Likert scale from 1I did not do this at
all to 4 I did this a lot. Carver reported adequate validity, test–retest reliability and internal
consistency of the COPE. In the present study, internal consistencies for the majority of the COPE
subscales were in line with psychometric standards αs > .70, except for mental disengagement
α.60, denial α.68 and suppression of competing activities α.62

Stress test and autonomic measures

Participants were exposed to a standardised stress protocolfrom the iSense relaxation training
software Comesa, Austria,which consisted of four phases: baseline, preparatory, stress and
relaxation. In the baseline phase, participants were asked to calm down “Please sit back and
relax”. Next, in the preparatory phase, they were informed about an upcoming stress stimulus “The
stress stimulus is coming soon”. The stress stimulus was then presented for 15 seconds and
included both visual and acoustic cues flickering pictures of spiders and snakes with an unpleasant
noise.

Finally, in the poststress, relaxation phase, participants were again asked to calm down. All
instructions were presented by the software on the computer screen and via headphones.
Participants’ heart ratewas monitored continuously during the stress protocol using a wireless
chest heart rate transmitter and a wrist monitor recorder. For analyses, heartrates within each
phase were averaged.

We calculated the “area under the individual response curve with respect to the increase” AUCI
using the trapezoid formula Pruessner,2003 as an index of heart rate reactivity. The AUC I allows a
sensitive measurement of physiological changes over time and has been often used as a reliable
indicator of reactivity to stress Hellhammer.

For heart rate recovery, we calculated the time in seconds at which the post stress values reached
the baseline values; shorter time indicated a more rapid recovery from stress.Cardiorespiratory
fitness test Participants performed the 2km UKK walk test to indirectly measure aerobic capacity.

This test provides an index of aerobic capacity and an estimate of maximal oxygen uptake
VO2max and has been validated for adults who are free from illnesses that disable walking and
from cardiovascular illnesses. The walks took place on a 400m outdoor track.The instruction for the
walks was “Walk the distance as fast as you can, but do not risk your health”.

Heart rate was monitored throughout the walks by a wireless chest heart rate transmitter and a
wrist monitor recorder.The mean rate during the last 60 s of the walk was considered the walking
heart rate. Participants were asked to refrain from fat eating, alcohol drinking and intensive
physical activity for atleast 1 day prior to the test day.

Data analysis
We tested for systematic differences in age, BMI, VO2 max, heartrate reactivity, heart rate
recovery, perceived life stress and coping strategies among the three study groups at the pretest
and the post test by means of separate analyses of variance ANOVAs. In case of significant
results, we performed post hoc tests with Bonferroni correction to explore differences between any
two pairs of groups. Furthermore, we analysed differences among the groups over time by means
of separate repeated measure ANOVAs with Group as the between subject factor 3 groups:
endurance training vs. resistance training vs. controlgroup and Time as the within subject factor
repeated measures: 4 for heart rate during the stress protocol, and 2 for VO2 max, heart rate
reactivity, heart rate recovery, perceived life stress and coping strategies.
Repeated measures results were verified with Greenhouse Geisser corrections where the Mauchly
test of sphericity determined heterogeneity of covariance. In case of significant results, we used
paired tests in each group to assess changes from the pretest to the post test. All analyses were
performed using x. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. The level of significance was set at p ≤
.05 two tailed. Partial eta squared ηp2 was used as an indicator of effect size for ANOVA
calculations, and Cohen’s dz was used for paired ttests. Partial etasquared of 0.01 indicated a
small, 0.059 a medium and 0.138a large effect size, respectively. For Cohen’s dz, values of 0.20
indicated a small, 0.50 a medium and 0.80 a large effect size, respectively. An a priori sampl esize
calculation with x, for three groups and two repeated measurements, based on middle effect size
f0.25, power.80 andα.05, resulted in a minimal sample size of 42 participants.

Results
Six persons from the training groups did not complete alltraining session and seven persons from
the control group did not show up for the posttest and were therefore excluded from the analyses.
Thus, the final sample consisted of 52 participants. The characteristics of the sample are
presented in Table 1. The groups did not significantly differ in age and BMI see Table 1 for exactp
values, but there was a significant Group BMI decreased significantly from the pretest to the
posttest in both the endurance, and the resistance training groups, whereas no significant change
occurred in the control group. Furthermore, the groups did not differ in pretest VO2 max,but
significant differences emerged in posttest VO2 max. Post hoc tests revealed that both the
endurance and the resistance training groups had significantly higher VO2 max than the control
group in the posttest, respectively, whereas the difference between the endurance and the
resistance groups was not significant. This was further qualified by a significant Group × Time
interaction.
Analyses of VO2 max within the groups revealed that VO2maxim proved significantly from the
pretest to the posttest inboth the endurance, and the resistance training groups,
whereas no significant change occurred in the control group. Heart rate responses to stress test
Mean heart rate levels bpm are presented in Figure 1. The stress protocol induced a significant
increase in heart rate in all three groups, both in the pretest, and the posttest
The groups did not differ in heart rate levels during the protocol in either test phase. Heart rate
reactivity, as indicated by AUCI, did not change significantly in the three groups from the pretest to
the posttest Table 2. However,a significant interaction effect emerged for heart rate recovery. While
there was no difference among the three groups in the pretest, the groups showed different
recovery times in the posttest.
Post hoc tests revealed that both the endurance and the resistance training groups had
significantly shorter recovery time than the control group in the post test respectively, whereas the
difference between the endurance and the resistance groups was not significant. Further analyses
of heart rate recovery within the groups revealed that recovery times decreased significantly from
the pretest to the posttest in both the endurance, and the resistance training groups, whereas no
change occurred inthe control group Table 2. Life stress perception and coping strategies The
groups did not significantly differ in the pretest levels ofperceived life stress, but significant
differences emerged in theposttest.

Post hoc tests revealed that both the endurance and the resistance training groups reported
significantly less life stress than the control group in the posttest respectively, whereas the
difference between the endurance and the resistance groups was not significant. This was further
qualifiedby a significant Group × Time interaction. Analyses of perceived life stress within the
groups revealed that life stress declined significantly from the pretest to the posttest in both the
endurance, and the resistance training groups, whereas no significant change occurred in the
control group. Regarding coping strategies, the groups did not differ in any of the tested coping
strategies in either test phase

Moreover, there was no significant Group × Time interaction, indicating that coping strategies did
not change among the groups from before to after the training. Analyses of coping strategies
within the groups revealed two significant changes, both in the resistance training group;
participants in his group reported using positive reinterpretation, and active coping, more frequently
in the posttest than in the pretest.

Discussion
This study tested the effect of 8 week endurance and resistance training programmes on
cardiovascular stress responses, lifestress perceptions and coping. Both training programmes
included standardized exercise protocols that led to a significant increase of VO2max in both
training groups with no significant difference between the groups.
The results showed that both endurance and resistance training programmes improved heart rate
recovery. Furthermore, participants who completed the training reported experiencing less stress in
their life thereafter. We did not find any significant differences in heart rate reactivity and coping
strategies from before to after the training programmes. Recent researchers have demonstrated
that regular endurance training improves cardiovascular responsiveness to acute stress.
Our results support these findings with regard to heart rate recovery, but not with regard to
reactivity. We did not observe a difference between trained and untrained participants in posttest
heart rate AUCI.
However, in the endurance training group, heart rate responses were imposed on a significantly
lower baseline level posttest 71.8 bpm as compared to pretest 83.4 bpm.
This would imply that absolute heart levels during stress were also lowered as a result of the
endurance training. Thereas on why this did not translate in lower reactivity may lay in the stress
test used. Even though our stress protocol induced a significant increase in heart rate in all study
groups, the absolute increase +15 bpm was lower as compared to the more demanding Trier
Social Stress Test applied by recent researchers over +20 bpm;
Hence, with our less “stressful” protocol, we might be on the lower side of detecting a reactivity
effect. In this study, we directly compared the effects of endurance and resistance trainings. This
was an important contribution given that only few researchers to date have simultaneously tested
the effects of endurance and resistance trainings on cardiovascular stress responses. We found
that both endurance and resistance training groups showed more rapid recovery times after
stressor cessation than untrained controls. Notably, the two training groups did not differ from each
other, indicating that both training types can result in the same healthrelated benefits.
Similar results emerged when using subjective measures of stress. The training groups reported
having less stress in their everyday life than the control group after but not before the training
period.
This was in line with prior evidence showing that active individuals were less likely to report stress
compared with those who had low exercise levels. Potential explanations for why physical exercise
lowers stress perceptions are that being enrolled in physical activity training can prevent feelings of
loneliness by broadening social networks andreduce susceptibility when confronted with external
demands, higher stress tolerance.
As we implemented a training group format and exercise protocols with progressively increasing
physical demands in the current study, both explanatory mechanisms are likely to account for our
results.The present study extended prior research by including a number of specific coping
strategies. We were interested in whether the increase of physical activity behaviour also changes
specific coping behaviour. Overall, coping strategies did not change as a consequence of exercise
training; the training and control groups reported using the same coping behaviour over time.
Although subsequent analyses revealed that participants in the resistance training group used
positive reinterpretation and active coping more frequently after the training than before, these
differences were only found when testing within group effects with no between group comparison.
Hence, we cannot conclude that exercise training changes coping strategies. A potential
explanation is that physical exercise is a coping mechanism per se, without having much impacton
other coping strategies.

Thus, rather thanexpecting mediation effects through engagement or disengagement coping

behaviour, future researchers should addressthe use of exercise as a coping strategy itself.Another
explanation is that even though physical exercisemight promote coping strategies the 8weekperiod
was too short to see the difference. Coping strategieswere previously found to have traitlike
qualities, but were less stableover time than, for example, personality traits, they found a high
overall stability of coping behaviour over a 2year time period, but also fluctuations withinsome
specific strategies.

Consequently, it is likely that some coping strategies are malleable and that physical activity may
promote them, but it presumably takes much longer than 8 weeks of regular exercise to see the
effect. In addition, the physical activity intervention could have a stronger effect in younger
samples, as coping repertoires increase with age, with the greatest development emerging from
early childhood to adolescence .

Future research should therefore test the effect of physical activity on coping strategies in younger
samples and over a longer time period.

Limitations
As mentioned earlier, the stress protocol used in this study had not as strong impact on heart rate
increase as the protocolsused in prior research on cardiovascular stress responses +15 bpm vs.
+20 bpm and more.

The findings thus allow only limited conclusions regarding heart rate reactivity, as it cannot be ruled
out that reactivity effects were masked by stress induction limitations. Furthermore, the
generalisability of our findings is limited to young healthy women having a rather high educational
level. Replications with other samples would provide more insight into the effect of gender, age,
education and clinical factors on exercise related stress adaptations.

Conclusion
We tested whether people would improve cardiovascular stress responsiveness, report less stress
in life and change coping strategies after completing an 8 week endurance or resistance training
programme. We found that participants in both endurance and resistance training groups
experienced less stress in their everyday life after the training and also exhibited more rapid heart
rate recovery from laboratory induced stressor than participants in the control group. We did not
find any significant differences in heart rate reactivity and coping strategies.

These findings partly support that exercise training may have stressreducing effects regardless of
the type of exercise. Both endurance exercise activities such as aerobic or jogging and resistance
exercise activities such as lifting weights can be effectively used to improve stress regulation
competence and, in turn, obtain health related benefits.

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Gabriela Štefániková and Veronika Adamská fortheir help with organization
of the trainings.
External grant funding was notused to fund this work. Internal funds by the Comenius University
inBratislava were used to cover the costs of the endurance and resistanceexercise
trainings.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.