Acute Effect Of Combined Exercise On Inhibit Control: A Preliminary Study

Recent studies indicated that exercise may improve cognitive function especially the inhibit control (IC) domain either in acute or chronic intervention. Aerobic exercise has been investigated most broadly, and prior works also indicated that resistance training (RT) might also enhance IC ability. However, the combined exercise (CE) which combines AE and RT in single bout of exercise session whether improves IC is still unknown. PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to investigate the acute CE and the IC performance of Stroop Color World Test (SCWT) in male adults. METHODS: 17 healthy adults (age: 24.47 ± 3.39 years, height: 173.26 ± 6.21 cm., and body weight: 75.31 ± 11.25 kg.) were recruited. All participants had to perform 10 RM test of four upper body exercises (bent-over row, bench press, seated biceps curl, and standing dumbbell lateral raise) and Lode protocol of cycle ergometer for the prediction of O2peak and maximal workload (Wmax) of oxygen uptake first as pre-intervention assessment. After one week, the present study randomized participants into in counter-balance order and within-subject crossover design of non-exercise intervention (NEI), resistance exercise intervention (REI), and CE intervention (CEI) which performed RE (2 sets of 10 repetitions of each exercise at 70% of 10RM with 2 mins between-set rest period) follow by AE (65% O2peak within corresponding W). All participants finished a SCWT (3 conditions included: neutral, congruent, and incongruent) before and right after of each intervention. Lastly, each intervention was separated by 7 days for wash-out. RESULTS: After acute CEI, the completion time of three condition in SCWT was significantly improved compared with NEI but was not significantly different with REI. In addition, the accuracy rate among three intervention was not significant different. CONCLUSION: Those findings indicated that acute moderate intensity CEI lasting for 40 minutes might improve the response time of SCWT compared with the NEI but had no difference with REI. These findings suggest that exercise-induced cognitive improvement might be influenced by CE type and duration. Future work should highlight the need to contemplate the duration and different exercise pattern of CE while developing acute exercise prescription to benefit EF in adult population.