A Cohort Study to Evaluate the Feasibility of Low Load/High Repetition Elastic Band Resistance Training for People with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Access to the published version may require subscription. Introduction Pulmonary rehabilitation is effective for people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) with regard to symptoms, function, participation, and health-care resource utilization [1]. One of the components of this evidence-based comprehensive intervention is resistance training that has been found to be beneficial in improving muscular strength, cycle endurance capacity [2-4] and upper extremity functional capacity [4]. In COPD, the predominant choice of exercise equipment in resistance training regimens has been weight machines. However, lack of access to this exercise equipment can be a barrier to maintenance of exercise capacity. This has highlighted the need to examine effects and safety of alternate exercise equipment [3]. Elastic resistance equipment such as elastic bands and tubing offers an alternative that has shown comparable results to weight machines regarding both upper and lower extremity exercises in healthy adults [5,6]. In people with COPD, O´Shea et al. [7] found that a predominantly home-based resistance training regimen with elastic bands could be used to increase knee extensor strength. Nevertheless, they did not find any effect on upper extremity strength and walking ability. The authors argued that the high attrition rate, with more than 40% of participants unable to complete the exercise program, to some extent may have influenced the effectiveness of the exercise regimen. This is, to our knowledge the only published study that have used elastic bands as primary resistance in people with COPD. In addition the study did not report any information about feasibility of the exercise program such as adverse events and compliance. Therefore, knowledge concerning the feasibility of using resistance training with elastic bands as resistance is limited for this group of people. A majority of previous resistance training studies in COPD have primarily focused on increasing muscular strength. Little is known regarding other trainable characteristics, such as peripheral muscular endurance which may be of importance since quadriceps muscular endurance has been shown to be reduced to a larger extent in comparison to quadriceps strength in people with COPD [8]. We have recently submitted a paper on the effects of an eight week low load/high repetition (i.e. peripheral muscular endurance) elastic band resistance training regimen that showed promising results, including increased functional upper and lower extremity exercise capacity, maximal strength and peripheral muscular endurance for the Abstract Methods: Twenty-two participants with moderate to severe COPD (mean forced expiratory volume in one second, and …