Strength Training Intervention for Hybrid Workers

Strength Training Intervention for Hybrid Workers: A Randomised Pilot Feasibility Trial

What Is This Study About? To find out if a short, easy-to-do resistance band workout can help people who work both at home and in the office feel stronger, less stressed, and more productive.

What Can Be learnt?

• Can doing resistance band exercises make people physically stronger?
• Can it help reduce stress and improve how well people work? How Will the Study Work?

Two groups will be compared:

• One group will do resistance band exercises.
• The other group won't change anything in their routine. What Will Participants Do?
• A 15-minute resistance band workout three times a week for four weeks
• Complete a short strength test and survey before and after the 4 weeks
• Send in a weekly training diary by email

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Stress; Strength; Work Engagement; Productivity
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Resistance band training

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 50
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United Kingdom
  • Glasgow, United Kingdom, G12 8QQ
    • University of Glasgow

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• working from home in the United Kingdom
• working from home 3 or more days per week
• performing less than 2 days per week of muscle strengthening exercise

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not working from home
• Working outside the United Kingdom
• performing more than 2 days per week of muscle strengthening exercise
• on holiday during the study
• answered yes to any of the questions in the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control; Usual routine
Experimental: Resistance band training	Behavioral: Resistance band training; Four-week resistance band training intervention (15 mins 3x per week). Written and video instructions on the exercises were provided inlcuding guidance on increasing resistance over the weeks.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Sit to stand	Number of sit to stands in 30 seconds - Higher score are positive	at baselines and then one week after the intervention ended
Push-up	Number of push ups in 30 seconds - Higher scores are positive	Baseline and one week after the intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Stress	Perceived stress was measured using the 10 item Cohen-Perceived Stress Scale. This instrument is designed to measure psychological stress and to evaluate the stressful situations of daily life by measuring the degree an individual feels their life has been unpredictable, uncontrollable and overloaded during the past month. Questions were rated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from never (0) to almost always (4) with the ratings for each question summed to create an overall stress score. Higher scores indicate more perceived stress with the possible range of summed scores ranging from zero to 40. Scores of 13 are classified as average stress levels and scores of 20 or above indicate high stress levels.	Baselines until one week after the intervention
Productivity	The Health and Work Questionnaire (HWQ) measures employee productivity and health. The survey consists of 24 questions (3 with sub-questions) used to create an overall HWQ score and six subscales; productivity, concentration/focus, supervisor relations, impatience/irritability, work satisfaction, and non-work satisfaction. Questions are rated on a 10-point Likert scale from a negative rating (1) to a positive rating (10). Scores for each subscale are calculated from the sum of responses to all the items comprising the subscale divided by the number of items in the subscale. An overall HWQ score is produced from the average of all six subscales. Scores closer to 10 indicate desirable productivity outcomes.	Baselines until one week after the intervention
Work engagement	The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) measures work engagement, which can be described as the opposite of burnout. The UWES-17 consists of 17 statements used to create an overall engagement score and three subscales: vigor, absorption, and dedication. Statements are rated on a 7-point Likert scale from never had this feeling (0) to always every day (6). Scores for each subscale are calculated from the sum of responses to all the items within that subscale, divided by the number of items in the subscale. An overall engagement score is produced from the average of all 17 subscales. Normative scores range from very low to very high, with very low scores for vigor, dedication, absorption and total engagement reported as ≤2.17, ≤1.60, ≤1.60 and ≤1.93, respectively, and very high scores reported as ≥5.61, ≥5.80, ≥5.36 and ≥5.54, respectively.	Baselines until one week after the intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Glasgow

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): June 3, 2022
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 17, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): July 17, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 18, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 18, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): July 25, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 30, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 25, 2025
• Last Verified: July 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: stress; Workplace; health promotion; resistance training; work engagement; productivity
• Other Study ID Numbers: 200210134

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Annonymised participant data will be made available by the author upon request.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Data and study protocol will be made available as part of publication.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No