Effect of a Female Strength & Conditioning Specialist on High School Girls' Health

Girls in the Weight Room: Assessing the Influence of a Female School-based Strength & Conditioning Specialist on the Health of High School Girls

The majority of today's youth do not engage in enough physical activity (PA) to maintain good health. Low PA levels are associated with poor health (e.g. diabetes, high blood pressure) and early mortality. Girls are less likely than boys to be active, and their rates of participation drop off more steeply during adolescence. Girls report many barriers to exercise, including transportation issues and feeling self-conscious about their appearance and abilities. School-based PA programs that try to improve health, mainly through aerobic exercise and education, have had a small effect to date. However, the few programs that included resistance training as the focus showed strong improvements in health related measures. In this project, we will examine the effect of a female strength and conditioning specialist on decreasing barriers and increasing the overall health of high school girls, with the delivery of in-school, girls-only resistance training programs. We will see if physical and mental health changes with the training, and how the presence of the S & C specialist affects the girls' social interactions within the school. The results will help individuals in the education sector plan programs and services to improve overall youth and school health.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Physical Inactivity; Low Physical Fitness
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Girls-only resistance training

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 31
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Manitoba
    • Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3E 0T6
      • University of Manitoba

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 13 years to 18 years (Child, Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Grades 7 to 12 at Grant Park High School
• do not participate on organized sports teams
• self-report as not meeting the recommended amount of 60 min of Moderate-Vigorous Physical Activity per day

Exclusion Criteria:

• engaged in regular resistance training activities within the previous 6 months
• health condition or injury that would put them at risk during testing/training

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Girls-only resistance training; 8 weeks of 2-3x/week girls-only resistance training class with a female strength and conditioning specialist.	Other: Girls-only resistance training
No Intervention: No resistance training; 8 weeks of usual activity.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
1 Repetition Maximum leg press	Change from Baseline and at 8 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
1 Repetition Maximum bench press		Baseline and at 8 weeks
Grip strength dynamometry	The average of three repetitions for each hand will be used in analysis	Baseline and at 8 weeks
mCAFT for aerobic fitness		Baseline and at 8 weeks
Physical activity levels	Average daily minutes spent in Sedentary, Low, Moderate and Vigorous intensity activity over 5 days will be measured via an accelerometer worn around the waist.	Baseline and at 8 weeks
Physical Self-Perception Profile	36 item questionnaire; scores for embedded scales of "Strength Competence", "Physical Self-Worth", "Global Self-Worth", and "Attractive Body Adequacy" will be calculated.	Baseline and at 8 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Manitoba
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Joanne Parsons, PhD, University of Manitoba

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 1, 2017
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2017

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 9, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 17, 2016
• First Posted (Estimate): May 18, 2016

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 3, 2018
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 2, 2018
• Last Verified: May 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Resistance Training; Muscle Strength
• Other Study ID Numbers: Grant Park

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No