Home-based resistance exercise snacks delivered and monitored remotely; 9-minute sessions performed once, twice, or thrice daily
Exercise Snacks
Resistance Exercise Snacks in Older Adults: Pilot Trial
A pilot trial tested remotely delivered, home-based 9-minute resistance exercise snacks in community-dwelling older adults. The four-week program was feasible, well accepted, and safe, but did not establish better physical-function changes than usual activity.
Study overview
- Study title
- Feasibility and acceptability of a remotely delivered, home-based, pragmatic resistance 'exercise snacking' intervention in community-dwelling older adults: a pilot randomised controlled trial.
- Study authors
- Jackson J Fyfe, Jack Dalla Via, Paul Jansons, David Scott, Robin M Daly
- Population
- Community-dwelling older adults; mean age 69.8 years, 63% female
- Sample size
- 38
- Duration
- 4 weeks
- Comparator
- Usual-activity control
- Outcomes
- Exercise adherence, Adverse events, Intervention acceptability, Balance, 5-times sit-to-stand, 30-second sit-to-stand
Intervention
Main findings
The intervention had 100% retention, high adherence, two adverse events across 1317 reported exercise-snacking sessions, and generally favorable acceptability ratings. Videoconference assessment was feasible, but four-week physical-function changes were similar to controls.
What this may mean in practice
Snacksmate's reading of the evidence — not a quotation from the original paper.
For community-dwelling older adults, remotely supervised resistance exercise snacks appeared feasible and acceptable over four weeks. The study did not establish that they improved physical function more than usual activity.
Limitations
The pilot study calls for longer-term research in larger cohorts to determine effectiveness.
Pilot feasibility trial with a small sample and short four-week follow-up; it did not establish comparative effectiveness.
Original study
What can you take from this?
The notes above are Snacksmate’s reading of this study, not personal advice.