[The effect of exercise type on cardiovascular disease risk index factors in male workers]

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the effects of three exercise types on anthropometric and serum lipids and physiological index factors, which are known to be the three risk factors of cardiovascular disease in male workers.

The experimental study period was 12 weeks. In this study, 30-40's males (N=31) were assigned to 3 experimental groups: regular aerobic(treadmill walking) exercise group, regular anaerobic(muscular endurance) exercise group, irregular aerobic & anaerobic exercise group and a control group using a stratified random assignment method.

In relation to anthropometric factors, the regular aerobic & anaerobic exercise groups showed significant decreases in Weight, Broca's index, WC, BMI, WHtR, WHpR and HRrest. With regard to the serum lipid factors, the TC was decreased, but the HDL-c increased among the regular aerobic & anaerobic exercise groups. However, no significant difference was found between the other groups in respect to the LDL-c and TG. Considering the physiological factors, the TC/HDL-c, TC-HDL/HDL-c, LDL-c/HDL-c and NON-HDL-c ratios were decreased, but the HDL-c/TC ratio increased among the regular aerobic & anaerobic exercise groups. The TG/HDL-c and HDL-c/LDL-c ratios showed no significant differences between the groups. These results indicated that the positive change for each factor is much larger in the regular exercise groups, especially in the anaerobic exercise group.

The results indicate that not only regular aerobic exercise, but also regular anaerobic (muscular endurance) exercise could be utilized in lessening the deleterious effects of the risk index factors for cardiovascular disease.